


Tabula Rasa

by Mussimm



Series: The Profane Comedy [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: AU: Mel Wins, Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Realities, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Whump (Good Omens), Cigarettes, Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Crowley is Lukewarm On Aziraphale, F/M, Food, Hurt/Comfort, I mean enough whump to go around but mostly Aziraphale, M/M, More tags to come as I go, Of course Crowley Loves Aziraphale don't be ridiculous, Yes I'm up to my old tricks again, explicit and sometimes uncomfortable sexual situations, mentions of csa, mentions of dv, reverse au, seriously heavy angst, yes I will write sequels to my own works, yes this is entirely self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:13:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 78,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23192989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mussimm/pseuds/Mussimm
Summary: Alternate ending to The Sandford Flower Show, if Aziraphale had never plucked up his courage and fixed things. You need to read the first one to understand this one.Mephistopheles was good at her job.It was a strange thought to find comforting, but it was one Aziraphale clung to. Sometimes it was easier to think of his life in the broad strokes than to suffer through each moment of it. If in his mind he was the hero of a Shakespearean tragedy, his life crumbled to dust by such human foibles, then there was a certain dignity at that. He had lost, but at least he had been playing against a master.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: The Profane Comedy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1667413
Comments: 926
Kudos: 412
Collections: Good Omens (Complete works), Hurt Omens





	1. all hope abandon

Mephistopheles was good at her job. 

It was a strange thought to find comforting, but it was one Aziraphale clung to. Sometimes it was easier to think of his life in the broad strokes than to suffer through each moment of it. If in his mind he was the hero of a Shakespearean tragedy, his life crumbled to dust by such human foibles, then there was a certain dignity at that. He had lost, but at least he had been playing against a master. 

She had stuck to her deal. Scrupulously, thoroughly, diligently. They were safe. Neither Heaven nor Hell saw through the bargain, saw it for what it was - a weaselwork to let them skip the consequences of rebellion. Both sides were exultant in the outcome, Mephistopheles was showered with commendations. Gabriel had been unable to hide his smug amusement.  _ Tough luck there, Aziraphale. Enjoy eternity.  _

“I’m off.” Crowley unfolded himself from his position on the settee, only two glasses of wine in. “Demon things to do.”

They did this, still. Again. Had found their way back to a parody of their old ways. They both still liked the shows and restaurants, the colour of humanity. The conversation was stilted, at least before the wine began flowing, but it was better than being alone. Maybe. It was different to being alone.

Last time Crowley had said those words he was making a picnic for them. They’d sat under an oak tree and Crowley had pressed a profiterole to his lips, mouth parted and hungry. Aziraphale looked at his own reflection in dark lenses. “Already? I thought we might..?”

Stupid. Another stupid torture for himself.

Crowley considered, twisting his empty wine glass by the stem. He gave a sort of shrug with his face. “Yeah, alright.”

Crowley rose and shrugged off his jacket, abandoning it on the settee before heading for the stairs, already working the buttons of his waistcoat loose. Aziraphale looked into his wine for a long second, girding himself for what was to come before he followed. 

It had taken five years. No time at all in the grand scheme of things. Something even a human could gloss over as a melancholy fugue, something Aziraphale could paint in his mind as a time of rumination and decision. A painful eternity to live through, to watch each night pass, throat raw and eyes red, heart crushed like an overripe peach in a careless fist. Painful, pointless questions that led him nowhere. Was this entirely his fault? Was his duty of care now to a Crowley who did not, could not love him? Would this friendship be for Crowley’s sake or just a way to torture himself for his mistakes?

He watched over Crowley like a friend who lost mobility in an accident. Doting like the demon couldn’t care for himself any longer. It was Aziraphale’s only choice, he’d never know for sure if it was true, didn’t know how deep Mel had cut to excise the tumour. It was a role he could play, could survive playing.

The bedroom had existed before, those five years where sleep was his only solace. He’d stripped it down for Crowley’s comfort since then, removed all traces of tartan, any books from the nightstand, made it something that belonged to him but wasn’t part of him. Removed as much intimacy from the act as he could, Crowley needed it that way. 

Aziraphale needed… The thought couldn’t even form itself in his mind before the bells started ringing in his ears.  _ You won’t have it. You can’t have it. You’ve lost him. He’s gone forever. You had it and you threw it away. _

_ Your fault. Your fault. Your fault. _

Crowley lay half naked on the bed, propped up on his elbows, sunglasses tossed to one side and a cocky smirk on his face. Aziraphale wanted to smother that expression off his face. He looked down, instead, focussed on unbuttoning himself. He tried not to think of that night in Sandford, Crowley’s hungry eyes, mouth, hands, the intensity in him, the frank desperation.  _ Should have known. You should have known. You saw how desperate he was. _

He joined Crowley on the bed, leaning down for a kiss, another, perfunctory, a concession to him. All this and Crowley still let him pretend, sometimes. Here, in this bed. He pressed his demon down into the mattress, bare skin on bare skin, helping himself to the last few buttons, tugging tight jeans down sharp hips. Still as beautiful as the first day in Eden. 

Aziraphale wasn’t going to cry. 

Mephistopheles had come to him some months after the flower show, gossamer eyes and cobwebbed wings. No paper cups, no flowers. Just an offer on the table with no strings attached. She’d take his love as well, if that made it more bearable. And it was the silliest thought he’d had in six thousand years, but he thought she might have been trying to be kind. He’d been polite in his refusal. 

When he pushed into Crowley, the sharp, shared gasp that filled the air was… it was… Crowley’s fingertips dug into Aziraphale’s thighs. Desperate. Just for a moment. A few seconds. A few minutes. Yellow eyes that glistened in the low light, hungry eyes and mouth and hands. Crowley didn’t argue with his touch, let Aziraphale’s hands explore and tighten and dig into that golden skin. 

_ Yes, yes, fuck yes– I love you, angel, my angel, fuck, I… _

It was a magic trick. A push at the right angle, a certain flick of his wrist and Crowley was back with him, just as delighted with him as he’d ever been. 

“Fuck,  _ yes _ ,” Crowley groaned into the dead air. His back arched, legs splaying wider, heels against Aziraphale’s back bringing them closer. This was the only way he liked it now, he wouldn’t hear of tending to Aziraphale as he had that first night. But that was alright, it was fine. It wouldn’t have been the same anyway. 

Aziraphale let his head fall back, his eyes close, let himself be pulled deeper, let his body tighten. If it didn’t feel good, at least it felt good. These bodies had their needs. And, he thought so often nowadays, his heart had its needs, too. A need to be punctured again, shattered, a need for at least one of them to  _ remember _ and to grieve. A need to see his demon lost, to believe that his own unforgivable mistake hadn’t stripped them both of joy forever. 

Crowley moaned one final time, his legs trembling, and spilled between them, gasping out ragged breaths. Aziraphale hung in the moment, in Crowley’s serene ecstasy, his parted lips and furrowed brow, the shudder of his body. His hips rose once more before he lolled, giving himself over entirely to Aziraphale’s care. 

Sometimes Aziraphale made it past this point, the pleasure overwhelming the pain for just long enough for him to finish. Not tonight. He’d seen what he came to see. 

He couldn’t just pull away, Crowley’s pity and second-hand embarrassment might be too much, he might decide this wasn’t worth it. So Aziraphale let out a little moan that might be considered strangled, pushed in hard once, twice, three times, stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. He feigned a satisfied sigh and miracled away the mess before he’d even pulled out.

This was what it was like to Fall. He thought of Dante, what he would say on walking past Aziraphale’s circle of Hell.  _ In their first life these all in mind were so distorted, that they made, according to due measure, of their wealth, no use. _

He was dark, now, a shadow of the greed that had let him take and take and not give back. The greed that had left Crowley to bear the burden for both of them. No matter how he tried to walk away his chains pulled him back and his flesh was mortified. An angel, unfallen, yet still in Hell. 

Because Mephistopheles was very good at her job. 

Crowley’s grin was smug, his eyes still closed. If he’d noticed Aziraphale’s attempt at deception he didn’t mention it. Maybe it was enough that he was allowed to pretend. They both knew the pretense was paper thin. Aziraphale loved. Crowley did not. As long as they didn’t look it in the eye they could ignore it. 

He had a minute, a minute to lie against the pillows, to ruck the blankets up about his hips and to watch. 

Oh, he had been so stupid. Not just at the flower show, when Mephistopheles had thrown her grenade and melted down their shrapnel into the shape she preferred. Before then. A hundred years? A thousand? More? He could see the fondness in every lazy smile now that it was gone. He saw each box of chocolates and bag of takeaway for what it was now that Crowley showed up empty-handed. 

He swallowed down the lump in his throat. He’d cried once after sex and it had been beyond awful to watch Crowley try to escape without being cruel. Fifteen years of occasional mistakes piled up. A thoughtless  _ love you _ on the way out the door. A drunken voicemail. Another slip up, putting the burden back onto Crowley, forcing him to either ease the pain or be the monster he knew he wasn’t. It was better to swallow it down, to numb himself and pretend. 

Crowley gave one last contented huff, opened his eyes and climbed out of bed. “Always a pleasure, angel.”

With a snap he was dressed. Aziraphale clutched the sheets tighter. 

“Will I see you again this week?”

Crowley shrugged, as if Aziraphale wouldn’t be counting the heartbeats, holding his breath. “There’s a production of  _ Don Quixote _ I’ve been meaning to see. I’ll call you when I get tickets.”

“That sounds lovely.” It did. It did sound lovely. It did, it did. It was better than losing him. 

“Later, angel.”

“Goodnight, my dear.”

Aziraphale stayed in bed, pulled the blankets up to his shoulders and closed his eyes. He thought of a motel room in Sandford. Thought of curling into a warm body, a hand stroking his bare back, quiet jokes and muffled laughter. The smile that made his heart do somersaults, the hug that told him he could let go of six thousand years of frustration. Whenever he wanted. Any second now. 

He showered, the human way. He could miracle himself clean but he’d always know what was there, underneath. 

Half an hour after Crowley had left he was stumbling back down the stairs, bow-tie forgotten on the floor, his house-coat over his shirt. The bottle of wine sat forgotten on his coffee table and he poured himself another glass. He was doing this more, as time went on - drinking alone. It helped, if only for a few hours. He’d take a few hours.

He looked into the wine, dark and rich, something he would have been so pleased to share twenty years ago. If he was given the choice he’d go back to before. He didn’t need it all, didn’t need the tantalising glimpse he’d had of being wholly and openly in love. If he could just have the fond smiles, the excited chatter, the almost, half, never spoken truth behind it all. A bottle of wine not nearly as important as the company. 

The bottle was empty when the bell above the door chimed again. Aziraphale looked up through red, bleary eyes. 

“Crowley?” he asked.

Crowley was back. Crowley was dressed in grey, a pale henley that clung to his body and sensibly-cut grey jeans that were faded just so. No sunglasses, no snakeskin boots, no chain around his neck. He was carrying a mobile telephone, not his own, but the kind Aziraphale had seen Michael and Uriel carrying. Crowley, but a paler, lighter Crowley sauntering into his bookshop. 

Something gripped his heart, something so much stronger than the strange sight before him warranted. Like an envelope in the mail that carried bad news, he knew before he knew. 

_ We were supposed to be safe _ . The bells rang in his ears.  _ All this and it only bought us twenty years? _

Crowley looked at him and Aziraphale jerked back. His eyes. His beautiful eyes. They were gold. Not dandelion yellow and slit like a snake, but gold-leaf layered onto human eyes. Aziraphale’s breath caught in his chest, the wine curdled in his stomach.

_ Marks of heaven. _

He jerked back, suddenly on his feet, knocking the coffee table away, the wine glasses shattering on the ground. 

Crowley looked around and frowned. “What are you playing at, dove? I told you she wouldn’t be here. Lot of books, though, look at that.”

Aziraphale could only stare. He glanced at Crowley’s feet. Runners, old like he’d walked holes through them. He tried to say something but what could he say? Crowley was still half-entranced by his phone, half by the bookshop, glancing around like it was all new to him. 

This new Crowley looked at him, really looked at him and Aziraphale couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. They were supposed to be safe. Crowley frowned. “Why are you dressed like that? And in that… wait, hang on…”

Aziraphale could see his own expression slowly dawning on the other creature’s face. Confusion, shock, suspicion. Not his Crowley and coming to realise it. The thing came closer, step by cautious step, eyes narrowing in on Aziraphale’s face, widening, everything else swept away by wonder. 

Soon Aziraphale was being crowded backwards, the not-Crowley examining him like a museum exhibit. He smelled wrong. He  _ felt _ wrong. Why couldn’t Aziraphale speak? He should ask what was going on or demand the thing step back, but all he had in him was to back into his bookcase and tremble, lips parted, unable to believe what he was seeing. 

“Your eyes,” the not-Crowley breathed, eyes round. “Jesus Christ, you’re an angel.” Something huge welled up in his expression, something big enough to choke on. “You never Fell.”

Aziraphale heard the whimper leave his mouth, realising now what he was seeing. 

_ Neither did you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	2. by gadflies and by hornets

Aziraphale watched Raphael ( _ please don’t call me Raph _ ) like he couldn’t take his eyes off him. He made them tea on autopilot ( _ right, human stuff, thanks _ ) while his eyes flicked back and forth, mesmerised. He sat across from him ( _ nice shop, very booky _ ) and watched and watched every gesture, quirk of the lip, crinkle of the eyes. 

Raphael was Crowley. And he wasn’t. And he was. 

Aziraphale had tried to call Crowley, to confirm he was still here, still alive, that this wasn’t some awful trick of Heaven or Hell, but had only reached his ansaphone. 

“I suppose I’m the one who needs to do the explaining,” Raphael said, hand clasped around his teacup but making no move to drink. “Not sure I have a good one. Explanation. I think the Antichrist is playing funny buggers.”

Adam’s enormous, terrible powers would explain this, if he still had them. “Adam doesn’t have the power to do this anymore, it must be something else.”

“Adam? Who’s…?” A complicated series of emotions flitted across Raphael’s face, falling on a dismayed sort of understanding. “Bloody hell, I’m further from home than I thought. _ Eve _ went missing two weeks ago. We hunted around a bit, found some sort of ritual portal  _ thing _ and followed. Ended up here and just as confused as you. Everything’s the same but a bit off. Is it weird if I think this is an alternate dimension or is that just too Star Trek?”

“That does sound a bit far-fetched.”

“If you have another explanation, I’m all ears.”

Another explanation. He barely had the one. His mind shorted and blanked, trying to put the facts together in a different order. It could be something sinister, another trick, another misdirection. He might still have something left to steal, as obscure and as valuable as what had been taken already. But this was… this was Crowley. 

Aziraphale watched the quirk and curl of his lips. He wished he could say that it made his heart ache, that he saw something he had been missing, but if anything the resemblance was too strong. A Crowley who didn’t know him, felt no connection to him. Just a palette swap of what he already had. 

A different Crowley with a different Antichrist. Eve. The same hospital? The same silly nuns? The same mixup? Their lives lived over again, just a little to the left? Maybe that was the truth that he didn’t want to see - that there was nothing special about what had happened, about who they were. Things had turned out as they turned out and maybe somewhere there was another Aziraphale who still had the things he’d lost.

“Are you with me, Aziraphale?” Raphael prompted. 

Aziraphale blinked, dragging himself back to the moment. “So sorry, dear boy.”

“I get it. It’s weird, isn’t it? The resemblance.”

“I take it by ‘we’, you mean…”

“Yeah.” Raphael paused, averting his eyes. “You’re Fallen.”

Aziraphale’s mind conjured some absurd images of himself in dark sunglasses and skinny jeans. Maybe with his hair dyed black or red. He let out a helpless chuckle. “So are you, I’m afraid.”

“Right, what did you call me when I walked in?”

“Crowley. His… his name is Crowley.”

“You didn’t seem very surprised to see him. Close, are you?” There was a studied nonchalance to the question that sent a prickle of fear through Aziraphale. Raphael stared at his teacup, still not drinking. He looked up, golden eyes piercing. An archangel. 

_ It’s a miracle you haven’t run into him yet _ , Gabriel had said, all false smiles.

“Are you not, with my, uh, counterpart? Your dove?” Aziraphale was sober enough to parry it and proud of himself for it. So caught off guard by everything this evening he was surprised he was making whole sentences. 

What was there for this stranger to find out, anyway? What consequence could he suffer that he hadn’t already? The only thing he could do that was more sacrilegious than stopping the apocalypse was to be in love with a demon and he could hardly be accused of that anymore. The occasional outing and some unattached lovemaking ( _ sex, it’s sex, it’s not love _ ) would have been hard to pin on him even back when they were watching.

He stared into those golden eyes and the ghost of a Crowley long since gone whispered in his ear:  _ what a wanker.  _ Aziraphale bit down on the hysterical laugh that threatened to bubble up in his chest. Because why not this? After everything? If he was struck down by the heavenly wrath of Crowley’s doppelganger, would that be so much worse than what he was already living with?

But he wasn’t, as it turned out. Raphael sighed. “Gets a bit complicated down here, doesn’t it?”

“Quite.”

“I know it’s not proper protocol, working with a demon, but Eve wants us to play nice, so, there it is. Nothing to worry about, all stamped and approved by upstairs.”

“This might sound like a strange question, but are you certain your Eve is the Antichrist?”

Raphael stared at him. “Pretty sure. Hellhound is the giveaway. Also the whole… birth.”

“What did she call it?”

“The dog? Crumpet. Yours?”

“Dog.”

Raphael laughed and it hit Aziraphale like a slap to the face. That smile. That toothy, sardonic smile aimed right at him, eyes lit up. His stomach hurt. He hadn’t seen that smile in twenty years. Twenty years, could it really have been twenty years? Since the flower show. No, before the flower show, before Mephistopheles sunk her claws deep, replaced their laughter with fear and need and then, eventually, nothing. Before Aziraphale had looked right in Crowley’s eyes, refused to confess his love and watched him walk away, words lodged in his throat, choking him. 

God, it had been him who’d wanted to go to Sandford. He hadn’t known. He hadn’t thought. He’d all but begged Crowley to go, had to convince him, they could have just stayed home, had a boring weekend at the bookshop. He hadn’t even properly read the article that took them there, he’d just wanted to see Crowley among the flowers. 

“Lost again, there?” Raphael’s voice yanked him back. There was something new in his face. Suspicion, but also concern. 

Aziraphale looked away, eyes burning. “Yes, I’m sorry, what were you saying?”

“Just that we should stop letting eleven-year-olds name hellhounds. Are you alright? S’alot to take in but are you… alright?”

“Perfectly. Tip top.” He felt the anxious smile on his face, the flutter of his hands around his teacup. An archangel in his bookshop, one who could stun the breath out of him and who didn’t know that he was retired from heaven. He needed to get out of this. “Can I ask what you intend to do here?”

Raphael shrugged. “Find Eve and then worry about it, yeah? She’ll have her reasons. We’ll get her home.”

“And you… want that?”

“Why wouldn’t I want that?”

“Because she’ll destroy the world?”

Raphael’s posture changed immediately. He opened his mouth to speak, then snapped it shut again. Placed his teacup on the table. Anger, or something like it, was building on his face, in his shoulders, in the clench of his hands. “What did you do, dove?”

“Only… only…” Aziraphale scrambled for the words. “Our Antichrist decided not to end the world, you see, and… and we supported his decision, you and I. I thought perhaps something similar might have occurred.”

“You just  _ decided _ not to end the world?” Raphael asked. “And everyone was okay with that?”

_ Can’t help yourself, can you, angel? All these years and you still want Heaven to like you _ .

“No. No, they weren’t. I’m… You’re…” Aziraphale forced his anxious smile away, bit the inside of his cheek to centre himself. The fear tightened in Aziraphale’s chest like iron bands. What did this matter, now? There was no one to be strong for anymore. Crowley’s heart couldn’t be moved by any display of strength and neither could his own, really. He couldn’t keep any conviction in his voice, but he could speak. “I would like to help you, my dear, and get you and your Antichrist on your way, but if you accept my help it is  _ my _ help, not Heaven’s.”

“So no war?”

“No war.”

“And the earth is just going on like it always has?”

“More or less.”

“And you and I…?”

“Are retired.”

Raphael absorbed this, silent, lips parted and eyebrows raised. Aziraphale sipped his tea. He ought to be miffed, he supposed, that this angel would barge into his dimension and demand any explanation at all. It wasn’t really his business but Aziraphale was too tired to argue, to fight.

Raphael blew out a breath, gesturing lazily with one hand. “Right, fine, your house, your rules, I guess. I need to find Eve, I’ll take whatever help you’re offering.”

Oh, he’d signed himself up to find the Antichrist again, hadn’t he? 

Well, the last time had… had worked out, hadn’t it?

Hadn’t it?

“So you’re ending your world,” Aziraphale said. It wasn’t a question.

Raphael made a series of demonstrative gestures with his hands. “One day. You know,  _ eventually _ . Once she’s decided how it’s going to play out. Been working on Blank Slate for twenty years now and she’s still stuck. This is going to confuse her all over again.”

“Blank Slate?”

“Yeah. Wipe it all clean, start new.”

Aziraphale could only imagine Gabriel and Beelzebub being told to wait a bit, the Antichrist would get back to them about the whole Armageddon thing. A little chuckle hovered on his lips at the thought. Michael trying to keep the troops in line for twenty years was an equally amusing image, her hands up in defense, her rousing speeches turned to pleas for patience. 

“I see Antichrists inherit their sense of civic responsibility from their father.”

Raphael blanched. “Their father?”

Aziraphale pointed downwards, eyebrow raised. “Their father.”

“Oh,  _ right _ . That father. Their father.”

And maybe Aziraphale should have taken his time to unpack that reaction but he just couldn’t. He couldn’t. It was late, he was half drunk and wrung out and if no one at all had visited him tonight he still would have been exhausted. He didn’t need to be thinking about alternate dimensions or academic Antichrists or any other versions of Crowley who hadn’t had their capacity for love surgically removed. Whatever reserve of energy he’d been working with had run dry some time ago and now it was more of a relax-before-impact situation where all he could do was hope blindly that his inability to engage with things meant they wouldn’t injure him too badly as they passed. He just didn’t see the point anymore.

“You seem very calm about all this,” he said instead.

“Ah, yeah. Wouldn’t be happening if God didn’t want it to happen, so it can’t be so bad. S’all part of the plan.”

“Ah, yes, the great plan.”

Raphael must have missed the hint of sarcasm because he flashed a beautiful smile. “The greatest.”

Aziraphale swallowed that down. Not Crowley. Not even close. “You seem surprised by the books. What were you expecting to be here?”

“You’re…” Raphael hesitated. He glanced at his phone like it would have some answers. “You sure you want to know?”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure. He already felt Fallen, walking through the dead halls of Hell, drab and impersonal, but that was different, he supposed, to knowing the details of himself after he took the plunge. It might be a mirror that was difficult to look into. But he was loose, ready for the impact, the joints of him already in freefall. 

“I’m sure to meet myself soon enough, aren’t I? Better to have some preparation.”

“You’re a dove,” Raphael said gently. “The eyes aren’t great for reading. This is a music store where I come from.”

A dove. Something bitter and awful curled in his chest, squeezed tight. It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t known what to expect but now he’d heard it he knew he didn’t want it. He’d  _ Fallen _ . He deserved to be a toad, a cockroach, a slug, something vile that crawled on the ground and left slime in its wake. 

Instead he was a dove, a common pigeon painted in pearlescent white and given a place of honour, and his bookstore filled with music to keep it as warm and full as it had ever been. A beautiful, golden angel his Heaven-and-Hell-approved companion. An Antichrist he… raised? Loved? Peace, love and music. 

He tried to sort through it in his head, why he was so angry that he hadn’t been punished more severely. It didn’t seem to matter how he sinned, even up to denying God, it would only ever be the turn of the screw, never the fall of the blade. And it made him so, so angry. He was choking on it, lips pressed together tightly, hands clenched so tightly around his teacup he was afraid he’d shatter it. 

“Hey, easy.” Raphael dropped to his knee before Aziraphale, golden eyes searching, and before he could protest Raphael placed a hand firmly on his chest, over his heart. Aziraphale gasped in a breath, belatedly realising how close he was to tears. He shook his head.  _ No, no, don’t touch me. You can’t help me. _

It was a physician’s touch, to calm a panic attack, strong fingers pressing into some pressure point below his collarbone and those eyes, those beautiful, hateful eyes searching his face as if he could find the injury. He looked so different, so right, smelled familiar but unfamiliar, like he’d taken a holiday to some far off place and come back using a different shampoo. And for the first time in twenty years he was looking at Aziraphale with real concern instead of guilt. 

A moan escaped Aziraphale’s tightly closed lips, something in the back of his throat. Raphael grasped him by the shoulder. “Steady, I’ve got you. That was too much. Try to focus. You’re in your bookshop. You’re an angel.”

Raphael didn’t understand. And how could he? The problem was him, almost as stunning as Crowley, so close Aziraphale could just lean forward into his arms. He tried to calm himself and focus, tried to bring himself back to his body, but the little hiccoughing moans wouldn’t stop. Raphael’s hand moved on his chest, rubbing soothing circles, and he leaned into it.

Raphael met him, leaning close. He let go of Aziraphale’s arm and slid his fingers into his hair, bringing them cheek-to-cheek. Aziraphale couldn’t stop the little cry as he felt that treasured skin against his own, a hint of stubble, warm and masculine, red hair filled his vision. 

Raphael pressed a kiss to Aziraphale’s temple and words punched through him with all the authority of the archangel of healing. “Sleep, dove, there you go. And no dreams.”

Aziraphale had no choice, he obeyed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	3. with eyes ashamed and downwards cast

_ "Please come back to the shop. It’s… well, not urgent, I suppose, but you’ll want to see this. At least call me so I know… Please just hurry back." _

Crowley mulled over the message, glass of scotch in hand. It had been a few hours since he’d left and he’d put off listening to the message, praying to whoever was listening that Aziraphale hadn’t drunk-dialled him again, weepy and emotional. This didn’t sound like that.

He looked at the glass in his hand. He was doing this too much, just drinking for the sake of it. The whisky tasted different now, sharper, more real. The main course instead of a side dish. The drunkenness was different, too, and not nearly as much fun as it used to be. 

_ Crowley, it’s… it’s me. I know I shouldn’t be calling you. I’m probably just making everything worse but I... _

He could have stayed. Should have stayed? Hard to tell. Drinking in company was supposed to be healthier or whatever but Aziraphale’s company was only good in small doses these days. 

He hadn’t expected it to just snap back to what it was. The enormity of what he’d done wasn’t lost on him. It was going to take a long, long time for Aziraphale to get used to the new status quo and Crowley wasn’t such an arsehole that he’d get impatient about it. But even when they were having fun there was something off about it, he got this sort of feeling like he was messing something up but couldn’t tell what it was. He ended up self-consciously thinking about how he was sitting, what he was wearing, each word he was choosing. Trying to match himself up to someone he didn’t remember properly. 

_ I love you. I shouldn’t say it but sometimes I think I’m just going to burst. It’s not wrong to love you, surely. They… they say being loved is a basic need.  _

And there was the ever-present threat that Aziraphale would have one of his episodes. The angel wasn’t looking so hot nowadays. He was becoming more grey than white, getting thinner, opening his shop even less. Best Crowley could tell he just sat there in the dark, drinking. And what the hell was he supposed to do about it? He wasn’t some kind of angel psychologist, and he couldn’t go back in time, so Aziraphale would just have to sort his own shit out when he got tired of this drama. 

But it was settling into an uncomfortable pattern. By day a listless angel, then an hour or two of strained friendship, then a volatile, emotional nighttime. The outbursts were smaller now, but crowding closer. Crowley didn’t want to deal with this. His presence wasn’t helping Aziraphale and he wasn’t doing himself any favours either. 

_ I know you don’t feel the same and I don’t blame you. I’m not trying to put anything on you. This was my doing, I know that.  _

Crowley had almost made up his mind to take another hundred year nap, skip these boring days of drinking and watching Netflix and having bugger all to do or think about or care about, skip whatever crisis was coming for Aziraphale. Maybe ten years instead of a hundred, or a cruise in the Bahamas. He could take up tempting people again, just to fill the time.  _ Something _ . Anything to get out of this godawful pattern they’d fallen into. 

So, phone message in the middle of the night, telling him to come back to the shop. Option one: go and risk Aziraphale having a meltdown in person, an excruciatingly embarrassing situation for the both of them or, option two: stay here with his too-peaty scotch and see if he could stomach another rewatch of The Good Place. Fucking hell. 

_ It’s ironic, isn’t it? All that time worrying and it turned out I was the one who was too much for you. Oh, I’m doing it again, aren’t I? _

He sighed, downed the last of his drink and hauled himself to his feet. All this human invention had been brilliant when he was an outsider looking in. No matter what they pulled he could find Aziaphale a day or a decade later and have a laugh (or a drink) about it. Now he actually had to deal with it, be involved or be a walking corpse because it was all that mattered anymore. An eternity to enjoy sweet bugger all, everything too sharp and no one to blunt it down. His own special version of Hell. He needed Aziraphale’s breakdown to break up the monotony. 

He slumped down the stairs and into the Bentley, which was looking a bit too conspicuous nowadays. Out of fashion, even for vintage cars. He might as well be driving around a horse and cart. He’d be sad to see the old girl go, but that was something to do, right? Car shopping? Taking the new one on long roadtrips to break it in or whatever? When the time came. He still had a few years left in his girl. 

_ I’m sorry. I’m sorry for calling, for everything, I’m… You don’t need to talk to me about this. I know it doesn’t change anything. I don’t want you to feel guilty.  _

He peeled away from the curb, willing the streets in front of him clear. A good, fast drive was still fun. He had to keep a list of things that didn’t make him want to crawl back to Hell, then go down the list again and again until he’d worn it all out and hope the rest of eternity passed between now and then. 

_ I’ll just go. I’m sorry. I’m… I’m sorry, Crowley. I miss you.  _

The bookshop lights were still on, the last shop on the block to still be lit up, apart from the general store down the way. Crowley parked in his usual spot and pushed through the door, tired and a little tipsy but feeling better for not being stuck in his flat. 

He caught a glimpse of Aziraphale, sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea in his hands, some of the colour back in his cheeks, but it was only a glimpse. When he saw who else was standing in the room his brain ground to a halt. 

Later he’d wish he could have said he paused to assess his options, that his mind raced through all the possible explanations - it was a trick from Heaven or Hell, a really convincing lookalike, some other minor demon or angel come to fuck with them like Mel had. None of that was true. He didn’t think anything. His brain bluescreened and left him standing, mouth hanging open, frozen just inside the doorway with the open door still locked in one hand. 

He ought to have an emotion about this. He wasn’t sure exactly which one, though, and the end result felt like having all of them together, a big wall of white noise in his brain. A tremble in his hands and a pounding in his chest. 

It was him. All pale and relaxed, thumbing through a bible. Those  _ eyes. _

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, setting down his teacup. “This is Raphael.”

He knew that. The Before was like the memory of being drunk, little flashes and, when reminded, an  _ oh right _ as everything crashed back. He remembered the name now, reminded of an ancient truth. Raphael, the angel who swanned about heaven with his gold eyes and his armful of stars. Raphael, who had looked just like this creature standing in front of him. 

He stood on the spot, being swept over by gold-flake eyes, taking him in return, taking in every detail. The soft grey clothes. The neatly combed hair. The little flecks of gold, in the buttons, in the earrings, in the nailbeds. He remembered the gold-tipped wings that sat in the nether. A thousand little flakes of something he’d given up, he’d rejected, something that had rejected him in turn. Those eyes lingered on him, on the sunglasses, the snake tattoo, the tilt of his hips. 

“Look at that,” Raphael said, his voice weak and stunned. “I’m a demon.” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale said softly, and Crowley looked at him properly for the first time. The way he looked up at Raphael, body focused on the angel, watching his reaction, a softness to his eyes and mouth that had been missing for years now. 

“What the hell is going on?” Crowley’s brain caught up to him, firing into action. “Aziraphale?”

“Raphael is from…” Aziraphale searched for some word, hands trying to grab it from the air. “... elsewhere. We’re not very clear on the specifics. It seems, just as there is another of you, and another of me, there is another Antichrist, who needs to be retrieved and sent home.”

Sure. “Of - of course. What else would we be doing at 3am on a Wednesday?”

“Don’t be sarcastic, dear.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow, glancing between Aziraphale seated on the edge of his little upholstered chair and the archangel tall and straight-spined above him. Both stared back at him like he was just expected to accept this at face value, throw himself into the ring and go on a Scooby Doo adventure with them. “I’m going to need a bit more than that.”

“And that’s reasonable. Raphael was just getting me up to speed, as it were, when you came in. Perhaps you’d go over it again for Crowley?”

Raphael nodded, twisted his mouth like he was deciding where to begin, bookmarking the bible with one long finger. “Eve Dowling, our Antichrist, was born in 2009 in a satanic convent hospital in Tadfield. She was placed with Tad and Harriet Dowling, the American ambassador and his wife, and we watched over her until her eleventh birthday, when she came to power as expected. Shortly afterwards she met with the horsepeople on the fields of Meggido and received her orders to destroy the world. But she didn’t. We’d taught her a bit too well.”

Raphael’s mouth quirked fondly, like a dad remembering his kid getting up to some cute mischief. “She wanted to do it right, yeah? She got right up in War’s face, ‘you want me to rule over a puddle of nuclear waste?’ So we all reached a compromise. She’d end the world, but in her own way, in her own time. Heaven and Hell could fight over each other and human souls, but Earth is hers and she’d decide what happened to it.”

“So, what?” Crowley asked. “She wants to end the world  _ nicely _ ? A fun apocalypse? They all end up dead either way.”

Raphael paused, chewing on that. “Yeah, they do. Eve’s theory is that this whole big world is a test, right? A maze to shove rats into, electric shocks and sugar treats and someone poking you with a pen to get you moving. She thinks it’s cruel.”

“Surely there’s more to it than that,” Aziraphale broke in. “The chaos of human life has led to great things: literature, art, philosophy.”

“Slavery, torture, persecution,” Raphael shot back. “You can’t get sugar for your tea without some poor bastard cutting down the cane for two pounds a month in Haiti. I’m not… My point is that Eve thinks the only reason we accept that good and bad things are so bound up in each other is that’s how it’s always been. So we started studying philosophy, history, psychology, bloody Youtube video essays, anything to answer the big question in the middle of all this: can it be better?”

Crowley glanced at Aziraphale, found him glancing back. This was some Lucifer talk, the real rebellion stuff, the kind of stuff that sent you sauntering vaguely downwards. Crowley had always maintained that God was a sadistic bastard, but he wasn’t liking where Raphael was headed with this. 

And the way Raphael frazzled as he talked didn’t suggest the project was going well. He looked tired, a sigh escaping him, deflating him. “A year ago Eve decided to study cryptology, thought it’d give her better insight into good and evil or whatever. Became obsessed with this book of prophecies.  _ The Nice and Accurate Prophecies -  _ “

“ _ \- of Agnes Nutter _ ,” the three of them finished together. 

“It’s real, then.” Raphael looked defeated. “She tried everything to find the thing. Got involved with witches and read these ridiculous magazines, draped herself all over with crystals and charms. Most of it seemed harmless, just humans doing things to make them feel like they have some control. Then she went missing. We found this big ring of symbols painted on the floor, loads of blood, the dove nearly had a heart attack. Fooled around with it a bit and then, bang, here we are.”

Crowley had a lot of talents. He was a snappy dresser, an excellent dancer, and he knew a load of bullshit when he heard it. Raphael wasn’t a bad liar, he’d fool Aziraphale no problems. And a lot of what he’d said was true, Crowley was sure. But the truth is the best camouflage for a big, fat, stinking lie. 

Probably the same lie Crowley had covered up with mission statement talk for six thousand years, if there was another Aziraphale floating around somewhere.  _ Oh dear, looks like the Antichrist is going off mission, guess I’ll just have to go to lunch with my hereditary enemy to sort it out _ . 

“This is ridiculous,” Crowley said, trying to mean it. It was ridiculous, that was a fact, and the archangel was feeding them some flavour of bullshit, but his heart wasn’t in the words. Raphael was him. He could feel it. There was some low pitched note or wavelength of light that vibrated between them. It would have been so much simpler if he could have just called it a bluff and thrown the bastard out on his arse, scolded Aziraphale for being so gullible. 

So, he was dealing with this now, apparently. 

And the Antichrist thing, well, it was believable, at least. Adam had managed rains of fish and flying saucers just by assuming they were real, surely a woman knee-deep in witchy nonsense could believe some silly ritual into working. He could picture it, the runes all written out in Klingon, a dish full of smouldering table salt with a stick of pink jumbo chalk stuck into it and a supremely confident Antichrist strolling in to light the whole thing up. 

“This is ridiculous,” he repeated, turning away, wishing he was somehow wearing more sunglasses. 

“It wasn’t my plan for the week either,  _ mate _ ,” Raphael bit out in Crowley’s own bloody voice like nothing was sacred anymore. 

This was stupid, and taxing, and too much. And it wasn’t like he had anything better going on but he still didn’t want to do it. Hang around with Mr. Perfect there and do another Antichrist hunt? He’d take drunkenly rewatching The Golden Girls over that. He’d take nearly anything over that. 

“This isn’t our problem. Why don’t we just shoot a flare gun at Heaven and Hell and see who wants to come get us first? Why aren’t you going to Heaven, anyway? Check in with the fellas upstairs?” Crowley asked Raphael. 

Raphael’s mouth twisted. “Oh, oh sure. Just walk into Heaven wearing your face. Hey, what’s up, guys? It’s been a while.”

“Please, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, voice soft, pleading. Eyes soft, too. “Our own Antichrist was dangerous enough. We gave up so much for this world. Let’s protect it.”

Crowley hated that look, that doe-eyed pleading. He hated being manipulated. “Don’t use the kissy voice on me, angel, you know it doesn’t work anymore.”

Aziraphale shrunk in on himself, the little brightness in his face fading. Crowley clamped a hand over his eyes and turned away again.  _ You fucking dickhead. All you have to do is not slap him in the face, can you manage that for one day? _

This. This was what he didn’t want. It was all a balancing act to begin with and he’d just managed to get enough plates in the air to keep life bearable. It wasn’t the time for an adventure. They had no skin in the game, nothing to win and everything to lose. 

“Well,” Aziraphale said, in that wobbling, trying-to-be-strong way of his, “I intend to help. Whether you do is your own choice.”

Crowley opened his mouth to reply when he was cut off, not by either of the angels but by the opening notes of a jaunty piano tune. It was muffled in the bookshop on rugs and between books, but unmistakably a piano playing.

And whatever that meant he didn’t want to deal with it, but there was something a little bit brilliant about the way Raphael’s eyes closed, and the beleaguered sigh that escaped him, the little slump of his shoulders. 

Aziraphale frowned. “I don’t own a piano.”

“You do now,” Raphael muttered. 

The three of them moved together, slow steps toward the sound. It was a style Crowley hadn’t heard in years, ragtime like he would have heard back in the early 1900s in any bar worth visiting, played by a skilled player. 

_ "First you get down on your knees, fiddle with your rosaries…" _ The voice was familiar and not familiar and familiar and above all else, female. “... _ bow your head with great respect and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect… _ ”

The piano sat buried in the stacks, through the winding maze of the store that was bigger inside than it should have been. It was an old baby grand with an elaborate inlay on the lid, and not nearly so interesting as the figure who bobbed along to the music as she played, a head of perfectly coiffed, ash blonde finger curls bobbling away. 

“... _ everybody say his own kyrie eleison, doin’ the Vatican Rag! _ ” 

She was caught in the wrong era, maybe a few decades before Aziraphale, the point where young American women blurred the line between dresses and negligees, all dolled up in silk and lace, peaches and cream. A lump formed in Crowley’s throat and he couldn’t swallow around it. His feet led him forward until he was standing above her, watching her hands fly across the keys. The scent of expensive floral perfume hit him like a punch to the chest. 

Raphael reached out with two fingers and tipped the key-cover forward. It slammed down, startling Crowley and nearly catching the woman’s fingers. She jerked her hands back and looked up with a huff. 

“How rude,” she said, glancing up first at Raphael, then at Crowley, huge black eyes, just a sliver of brightest blue around the iris, punched straight through him. Her peaked nose and soft chin and the wrinkles around her eyes, the little crease between her eyebrows and the painted pink of her lips. 

It was Aziraphale, and she was  _ beautiful _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Vatican Rag by Tom Lehrer makes me laugh every single time.
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	4. hither, thither, downward, upward

Aziraphale didn’t know where to look. Was it rude to stare? It didn’t seem to matter - he couldn’t help himself, eyes darting over her face, her clothes, the ruby pin in her hair. She glared up at Raphael, who had returned to flicking at his mobile telephone with determined nonchalance. 

“Gents, this is Esther, the White Dove of Eden,” Raphael said, then flicked a hand at each of them. “Aziraphale, Crowley.” 

“Aziraphale. Oh, well that’s… Let me get a look at you.” She fished a pair of spectacles out of the pocket of her silky robe and held them up to her eyes, blinking up at him owlishly. After a moment she turned to Crowley and a soft smile played on her lips. She returned the glasses to her pocket and smiled up at Raphael. “Oh, Raph. I commit myself to being  _ unbearable _ about this.”

“And what were you being before, dove?”

She was blind. It wasn’t just the comically thick glasses, her eyes didn’t focus on Raphael. 

“You’ve been in this dimension for twelve hours, who could you possibly be texting?”

“It’s the 1930s,” Raphael said. “They want their unflattering dress back.”

“They can’t have it.”

Him and not him. No wonder Crowley had looked so frozen on seeing Raphael. He couldn’t stop seeing himself, the similarities, the differences. The blindness seemed like it should be poetic, a metaphor for something, something he’d lost in the Fall, his books, his stories, his way of seeing the world. But it didn’t feel like a loss. She didn’t look lost, she looked soft and colourful. He had been expecting black. His mind didn’t want to move away from the pink and white silk. That wide-blown gaze must have been couched in a soft haze of musky pink, her fall-burns smothered in silk. Cushioned blows. 

Aziraphale stepped backwards, letting Crowley and Raphael give Esther their full attention. If he kept back he could just observe, not be asked to speak. Raphael was still half-looking at his phone as he threw barbs, Crowley simply stared, face frozen, and neither seemed to notice Aziraphale removing himself from the conversation. 

“She’s not here,” Raphael said. “Can I assume you’ve figured out where we are?”

“We appear to be elsewhere, don’t we?” Esther replied, fingers stroking idly along the slammed-shut piano. “I checked the usual spots and found neither hide nor hair of her. She mustn’t know we’ve followed or she would have found a way to contact us by now.”

“She’s playing hooky, dove, you don’t call up your chaperones and ask them to come get you when you run off.”

“Then we’ll have to be smarter than her, won’t we?”

This was awful. The way they talked felt… It was like the early days, the very early days. Mesopotamia, Palestine, Crete, before there was any love between them. Just jabs and deflections, blind groping for answers since their problems were their own yet somehow shared. Any affection buried beneath layers of other business. 

“Not that easy,” said Crowley. “You don’t find Antichrists the usual way.”

“Oh, hello,” Esther said, as if seeing him for the first time. She turned to him on the piano stool, peering up at him with the affect of a pigeon who had spotted a fluffy bit of bread. “Crowley, was it? Charmed, I’m sure.”

She held out her hand and Crowley took it. Just took it, no hesitation, no awkwardness, he held her fingers like a gentleman from the age she was stuck in, gave them the period-appropriate shake. Esther let out a delighted giggle and Aziraphale’s stomach dropped. He knew that expression, that posture. It had been a while since he’d seen it. 

“Likewise. It’d be a treat if this Antichrist hunt went better than our last one.”

“There was a last one? Oh, you must tell me the story.”

Crowley smiled. He met her smile and just smiled right back, something sharp behind the softness for the both of them. Two demons, talking as demons did, some hidden meaning passed between them. 

How long had it taken for Aziraphale to win a smile? The flaming sword, that was the first one, but that was the first hint of laughter, but it had taken him a long time to win a second. How long afterwards? Thousands of years? It must have been sometime in Mesopotamia or Egypt, strolling in a marketplace, trying to put on some kind of show about thwarting each other while they didn’t precisely know how to do that. An eon of carefully testing the waters before that second smile. 

Aziraphale slipped back another step, silent and unnoticed, then another. Esther’s smile was so easy on her face. 

Before he really knew it he was standing in his back room again, the conversation a murmur of familiar voices from deep in the stacks. He picked up his teacup. No amount of tea would make him calm, but it might help a little. It was better than staying to watch.

He had wondered over the years just how deep Mephistopheles had cut, if she had taken only Crowley’s love for  _ him _ or if she had taken all of it. It had been an idle thought to fuel his grief on darker nights. He hadn’t thought he’d ever find out. Who would Crowley love? A human? Ridiculous, they were children, even the ancient ones. Another angel or demon? Even less likely. But it turned out he had his answer.

Oh, it wasn’t love. No matter what magic was at play, two minutes around Esther would never be the same as six thousand years of companionship. But it was something. The spark, the frisson, the solicitude. It all still lived there, deep down, and now had an outlet for the first time in two decades. Just not for him. 

Somehow Aziraphale doubted they’d be hearing any more objections about helping to find Eve.

He already knew how to find her, fiddly as it would be. Adam was living in London now, the head of some human rights group. Miss Device and her witchfinder were still in Tadfield. Shadwell and Tracey were too old for any of this nonsense now, best they be left alone, but they knew plenty of humans to help find a wayward human. The same frustrating treasure hunt awaited, Aziraphale was sure, but it was workable. 

The thought wasn’t comforting. Or maybe it was, but not nearly enough. They’d been frantic the first time, digging through the clues, the clock ticking, now how long would they take? How many days, nights, weeks? Interminable hours with Raphael’s scrutiny, with reminders of how bright Crowley could shine, with Esther’s very presence rubbing his nose in his own poor choices.

Were they bad choices, he wondered, except for that one at the very end? For all he had scolded himself over the years for not being what Heaven wanted, he didn’t regret much of anything before Sandford. It had all happened for a reason, even the things that seemed like such silly coincidence, like the unintentional baby swap, or Shadwell bilking the both of them for years - it had all come together in the end to the best possible outcome. 

No, his decisions weren’t the poor ones, or at least not the only poor ones. Esther’s were leading her to a place he couldn’t imagine. She might have lovely clothes and hold sway over Raphael and Crowley like an orchestra conductor, but her world was going to end. All the blessings that seemed heaped upon her were destined to end, just as Aziraphale’s charmed circumstance had fallen apart.

Maybe that was it, the answer, the greater plan he kept missing. Maybe God had always meant for him to fall at the finish line.

“Alright there?”

“Oh, Crowley, forgive me, I…” Aziraphale looked up. Raphael stood with crossed arms, hesitant to approach him. “Oh. Quite alright, my dear fellow. I’m sure you understand.”

Raphael nodded. “Are we alright to leave them alone? Esther won’t hurt her own shop, but is Crowley..?”

He let the question dangle in the air, shoulders tight and drawn. Aziraphale felt something inside him thaw, the gooey caramel centre of him where his thoughts about Crowley had lived for so long. Setting Raphael’s mind at ease was the first thing he’d felt comfortable about since he first walked through the door.

“Oh, my dear, you don’t need to worry on that account. He’s quite embarrassingly kind for a demon.”

Raphael uncoiled a little and took up a seat again, leaning forward into what Aziraphale was coming to think of as his signature posture. Elbows on his knees, fingers steepled, eyes forward and attentive. “I’m sorry about her. She can’t help it. Or, well, she won’t help it.”

Aziraphale laughed weakly. “No need to apologise. She’s me, isn’t she? Perhaps it’s good for the soul to look into an unflattering mirror now and then.”

“It’s nice to meet someone else who doesn’t just -” He made a finger-wiggling gesture in the direction of the two demons, indicating he was quite accustomed to the spectacle of men being fascinated with Esther. “She’s too bloody good at her job, some days. I, I mean, sorry, I’m not saying you make a good demon, she’s not you, and she’s not even that good.”

Aziraphale couldn’t stop the amused smile tugging at his lips. It was a bit of solace that he could find the verbal stumbling charming again. Another forgotten, frozen part of him melted a little. “No need for all these apologies, or I may have to rib you about making such a terribly poor demon.”

Raphael’s smile was crooked and tight-lipped, but so warm, and for a moment their eyes met, smiles of fond exasperation colliding. It was a violent mental dissonance, to see the same smile Crowley so often wore in their moments of conspiracy, yet it was also so similar to how Gabriel looked at the other archangels when he told a joke at Aziraphale’s expense. Two expressions Aziraphale had so desperately longed to be on the receiving end of at different points in his life. And oh, he so dearly needed this tonight of all nights. 

Raphael coughed and looked away, eyes dancing down, up, back to Aziraphale. “Ah, thanks, yeah. I’ve got a plan for Eve, if you want to help. I don’t think those two are getting anything done.”

“Of course.”

“She did whatever she did in her apartment building, that’s where we came out. If we can get access to the cameras we can see which way she headed, get a clue to where she was going.”

“It won’t work.”

“Pardon?”

Aziraphale shrugged, heart clenching as he remembered the trip to Tadfield hospital. Crowley’s enormous grin when they discussed firearms, his eyes, his lips, the tilt of him as he miracled away a paintball, the wall that struck his back as Crowley grabbed him with both hands, their noses touching. He shook his head. “She won’t be found that way. We tried it with Adam but he tended to move through the world unseen. I have an alternate suggestion, if you please.”

“By all means, Mr. Antichrist Hunter.”

“There were some humans who tracked Adam while we were still flailing in the dark. They’re still alive. We might enlist their aid, as well as Adam’s, to get us on the right track.”

“That does sound simpler.”

A burst of laughter came from the stacks and Aziraphale stared, unable to see anything. This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? That glorious grin when Crowley had set himself on some particularly fulsome mischief. It should have been like watching his hobbled friend stand straight again. It didn’t matter where it was directed. Esther would be gone before he knew it, taking that happiness with her. To be jealous, to want to speed her exit along, would be the very height of selfishness. He hadn’t spent fifteen years trying to make life easier on Crowley only to begrudge him some actual happiness now. He hadn’t, he wouldn’t, that wasn’t who he was.

“Do you trust Esther in this?” Aziraphale asked, eyes still fixed on the stacks. 

“Yeah. Eve’s the only thing she gives a damn about, she’s on our side.”

Aziraphale pulled his face into a tight smile, looked back to Raphael. “Then perhaps we might cover more ground in two teams.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	5. reason subjugate to appetite

“Oh,  _ hello _ .” Esther’s fingers skated along the line of the Bentley’s hood, eyes dark with appreciation. “Oh, aren’t you gorgeous.”

Crowley watched her, watched how her legs worked as she sidled down the length of the car, silk stockings hugging her knees and calves just like they had in… No. Something slammed down inside him, the pitter patter of his heart screeching to a halt that left a pit in his chest. 

He looked at her again and saw it differently. Just a demon with a dramatic flair putting fingerprints on the Bentley’s hood. The same short fingers he saw handle books and wine glasses, Aziraphale’s fingers. Legs in silk stockings for the whole middle ages, right up until the 1800s when they fell out of fashion and for a little longer after that. 

He shook his head. He hadn’t known Esther then, hadn’t seen her or her legs before tonight, and Aziraphale’s hands were still firmly attached to Aziraphale inside the bookshop. He opened the passenger door and held out a hand. “Let’s get on.”

She fluttered her eyelashes prettily at him as she slipped into place and… yeah, he was back, heart picking up its syncopated rhythm, a warmth flooding him that he couldn’t quite identify. Crowley closed the door for her and slipped around to his own side, firing the engine up while Esther fondled and caressed everything she could get her hands on, occasionally pulling out her outdated glasses to get a better look and cooing praise. 

“So this Anathema character,” she said, having apparently given the car enough admiration. “Can we expect her cooperation?”

Crowley pulled out onto the empty streets, the morning traffic wouldn’t start for another couple of hours. “Dunno. Adam didn’t let them remember everything properly, so they might not notice anything different about you. Might not care if they do.”

“And they’re capable? She and her husband?”

“Not the word I would use.” That was the big joke, really. While he’d been messing around with the American ambassador the world had been saved by some of the silliest creatures he’d ever met in six thousand years, plus a gang of ten-year-olds. The witch wasn’t much of a witch without her magic book, and Pulsifer didn’t have two brain-cells to rub together, but they’d managed it once. “But they’re better at this than we ever were.”

“Funny little creatures, aren’t they?”

“That they are. Music?” He jabbed at a button on the console, already knowing their soundtrack. 

_ Are you gonna take me home tonight? Oh, down beside that red firelight? _

Crowley shot a glare at the car, like it would ever be afraid of him. 

Esther tittered, a little avian cooing to the noise. “Is this a comment on my physique, my dear?”

_ Fat-bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round… _

“Not by me.” Not that he hadn’t noticed. The curves, that is, the way her dress clung so suggestively to her plump thighs where she lounged against the leather seat. “No one ever taught this thing any manners.”

They were very nice thighs. The kind he could sink his fingers into, push her down onto a bed, spoon up behind her, nestled into that round arse, get a handful of luscious thigh and spread her legs. The sense memory hit him hard, a bed covered in ugly cross-stitch pillows, crushed viscaria clinging to the air, one hand guiding one thick leg forward as he pressed kisses into skin. Praying and begging. His heart dropped. He squeezed the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white, gritted his teeth. If he were human this would give him a heart condition. 

That was the trick of it, you see. He could enjoy this heart-pounding, body-warming, cock-twitching thrill as long as he didn’t think about why. Didn’t think about where he’d seen it before or who else he might appreciate for the same qualities. He was running full pelt an inch away from a brick wall and the slightest misstep would send him hurtling to the ground in an inelegant sprawl of limbs. 

Fuck, at least it was something. Something other than drinking in the dark, watching the same TV shows, yelling at the same plants, pulling the same joyless pranks. 

Esther didn’t seem to mind as they sped toward the M25, unfazed by his shifting moods and the speedometer creeping past 100. 

The flick of a lighter and she held a cigarette between her lips, the acrid smell of smoke hitting him instantly. It smelled like Pollution. He opened his mouth, the words already on his tongue to tell her that he’d never let anyone smoke in the Bentley and he wasn’t planning to start now. 

Esther was staring serenely out the window, pink lips pursed around the cigarette, blind, black-lined eyes flicked across the scenery. Crowley closed his mouth again. The smell wasn’t that bad. 

He stared out along the road, the buildings rushing by, eyes flicking to Esther without his permission. She was so different. Sure, the same nose, the way she primly held her knees together, the outfit that might have been immaculate fifty years ago. But so different. 

“What happened?” he asked. 

“Hmm?”

“Y’know, what  _ happened _ ?” He gave her the thumbs-down to emphasise the point. 

She gave him those big pigeon eyes. “Oh! Oh, well, same as happens to most, I assume. The wrong words to the wrong person and it’s a one way ticket, I’m afraid.” 

“Oh, come on, that’s not an answer.”

“Well you know how angels are,” she pouted. “They kept going on and on about how good they were even as they were making the first war. And eventually I didn’t really know what else to do, in good conscience.”

A grin started creeping across Crowley’s face. Aziraphale only ever took that tone when he was avoiding talking about some act of outstanding bastardry. 

“And what did you do, in good conscience?”

Her eyes met the ceiling and she mumbled something around her cigarette, something Crowley had definitely misunderstood. 

“Sorry, what was that?” he asked. 

“I told the archangel Gabriel…” Esther spoke each word like it was forced testimony, dragged out one by one, each punctuated by a little quirk of her hand. “...to go fuck himself.”

Crowley couldn’t help the ugly cackle that burst from his mouth, too loud in the small space. He grinned at her and couldn’t remember being more delighted. What a mental image. She would have looked just like Aziraphale in heaven, way back when it was all white robes and sparkly wings, and he could just see the pinched, frustrated spite on her face as she spat that out at the Archangel Fucking Gabriel. 

“I suppose the words themselves weren’t what damned me,” she continued. “It was the sentiment, really, but I feel I expressed myself well. There’s a certain satisfaction in self-expression.”

“That there is.”

“What about you, what was your great sin?”

“Ah.” Crowley’s grin faded, trying to figure out how to put it into words. He’d complained of only asking questions to himself, to thin air, he’d fluffed it up for other demons to make himself more threatening and quietly skirted around it with Aziraphale, who didn’t really want to know. But Esther wasn’t asking about him, not really, she was asking about Raphael. “No big story. I’d heard Lucifer talk his talk, I wasn’t really with him, I was still…” he searched for the word. “... deciding.”

“I see.” Esther nodded sagely. “We can’t have angels doing radical things like making decisions.”

“Nope.”

“What a fascinating thought. I never imagined Raphael could have doubts. Maybe we’re more different than we assumed.”

Crowley laughed again. “No, Aziraphale has wanted to tell Gabriel to go fuck himself for as long as I’ve known him.”

“Hardly a unique trait. Did he ever?”

“Eh, sort of. I expressed myself on his behalf.”

Esther snorted. “The two of you, thick as thieves. I suppose I can understand it. I’ve had to stand up to Hell for Eve, and Raphael to Heaven. If she decided not to end the world I’d have to support her in that, too, ghastly as it would be. You poor thing, I can’t imagine the war being called off completely.”

Crowley didn’t reply. She was a hell creature, down to the bone. He couldn’t quite remember why he’d wanted to stop Adam. He loved the world and hated Hell, he knew that, he knew the war just sounded like a gory mess. His memory was ancient and he could have recited word-for-word his pitch to Aziraphale, all the things they’d lose no matter who won. No single malt scotch in Heaven and it’s not fair on the gorillas. All made a lot of sense but it was one of those muzzy, distant things, it felt like a second hand account. Even missing all these pieces he knew Esther was reading from a different page. 

That was the big difference. She could pile on makeup, style her hair and take whatever plunge she liked but she wasn’t like Aziraphale, she wasn’t even like Crowley. She wasn’t the odd little principality or the too-native minor demon struggling to stay in line. She believed. 

Still, she’d told Gabriel to fuck off so she couldn’t be all bad. 

The scenery flashed by, London lights fading to village street lamps fading to trees in the grey dawn as Esther chattered and Crowley listened. It was nice, for the first time in a long time, to have someone beside him in his car. Her voice was musical, the little dove’s coo creeping in from time to time, and she spoke animatedly on music and cars, stars and forests as they shot along the highways. 

_ Interaction with her was captivating,  _ Plutarch had written thousands of years ago. Aziraphale loved to quote it, loved to talk about the last valiant resistance of the Egyptian Pharaohs.  _ Her persuasiveness in discussion was stimulating. Like a many-stringed instrument, she turned her tongue easily to whatever dialect she would. _

Cleopatra had taken crushed pearls in her wine and Crowley knew without a flicker of doubt that Esther had as well. 

_ Time does not wither nor custom stale her infinite variety. _

A fluorescent sign by the side of the road caught Crowley’s eye and he pulled into the service station, screeching to a stop that left black marks on the cement. He never needed petrol, but his plans to sleep had been so rudely interrupted that a coffee sounded good. 

“Back in a sec,” he said, climbing out of the car. He left the Bentley blocking two pumps, just enough to cause a little early morning annoyance for anyone who had their fuel cap on the left side. 

The counter was manned by a sleepy eyed high-schooler who didn’t even look up as he walked in. He grabbed a paper cup and pressed some buttons on the machine, knowing it would end up as a cup of strong black coffee more decent than humans might expect from this sort of place. The machine whirred and buzzed obligingly.

There were flimsy plastic packages of cake by the front counter so he grabbed a slice of angel food and paid by reflex, like he always would with the angel in the car to avoid any snitty comments on the drive ahead. The teenager barely raised his eyes, the beep of the card machine the only sound between them. Crowley wished he could take credit for service stations. Whoever had come up with these sterile fluorescent limbos that dotted freeways was a genius and had definitely earned a commendation. 

The sliding doors opened for him and he came out to see Esther with her window down, talking to a human. Fighting with a human. Well, the human was doing most of the fighting, face getting redder and voice getting louder while Esther puffed away at her cigarette, nonplussed. 

Crowley approached to hear the tirade getting louder. “Listen, you fucking -”

“There a problem here?” Crowley asked. 

The human turned to him, the red face matched by wide, angry eyes. He was big. Taller than Crowley by a few inches and solidly built. The kind of man who was probably used to getting his way with a raised voice and a big man’s posture. “Nice parking, dickhead, some of us have places to be.”

Crowley let his sunglasses slip half an inch down his nose, enough to give the human a glimpse of his eyes but not be too sure about what he was seeing. There wasn’t any danger here, he could send this idiot to the moon with a thought, but he didn’t like seeing him looming over Esther, shouting at her. “Leave, now.”

The man turned redder, mouth snapping shut, but made the smart decision after a few fuming seconds. 

“Dumb bitch,” he spat at Esther as he stormed off. She waved after him. 

Crowley slid into the car. He took a sip of his coffee and tossed the slice of cake onto Esther’s lap. She looked down at it, startled and curious, and it took him a long, stupid second to realise why. 

He didn’t say anything, caught in the headlights, because they both knew in the same second why he had bought the cake for her. She stared at it, then broke into a grin, lighting up like sunshine. No, like hellfire. 

Crowley’s stomach twisted into knots, his face was suddenly too warm and for a heartbeat that smile was the best thing God had ever created. Delighted and grateful, like she couldn’t think of anything better than a slice of prepackaged cake if he was the one giving it to her. Just one sliver of a moment where it all rushed back, right down to his fingertips, a love like he loved nothing else. Then he hit the wall. 

Aziraphale had smiled at him like that, again and again, after every favour, every time he’d been a shameless idiot, debasing himself for the angel’s attention. The smile a human gives their dog when it rolls over and shows its belly. Condescending, neutering. This is how he was defanged and made a tame demon to be led around, bending himself out of shape until he barely recognised himself. That stupid sunshine smile. 

“Just eat the cake,” he sighed. 

She opened her mouth but paused, glancing over her shoulder. Outside, the human had apparently found his courage again and they had lingered too long in front of the pumps because he was climbing out of his car behind them, getting ready to march back to them. 

Crowley was about to give the man a fungal infection he’d never forget but Esther raised her hand first, fingers snapping loud in the quiet morning air. 

The man fell to his knees, eyes bulging. He came down hard, the weight he’d tried to throw around collapsing on itself, landing him on the oil stained cement so hard his knees must have cracked. He hung there a few seconds, then clutched at his chest, shuddering, then crumpled forward. 

Crowley stared. He was gone.

Esther turned back to him, still smiling her lovely smile, and gave a satisfied sigh. “One for downstairs, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Crowley said blankly. “Definitely one of ours.”

Esther settled back against her seat and cracked open the cake container. Crowley started the car and pulled away, headed back to the highway before the teenager at the counter had even made it out the door, running to help the man who now lay dead on the pavement, his life ended at a rest stop forty-five minutes outside London. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com/)


	6. citizens of the divided city

They’d gone to Adam’s wedding three years ago. Aziraphale hadn’t really wanted to but it seemed right. They’d never been much in the way of godfathers but they’d chosen the title and it had responsibilities. It had been lovely to see the humans so happy, tipsy and dancing in their fine clothes, eating cake, trading kisses. It had also been horrible to sit next to Crowley, largely silent and waiting for it to be over. 

He’d had silly, half-formed fantasies of weddings. At first brief thoughts, quickly shoved aside and swallowed down with a self-admonishment. Then, after the apocalypse didn’t happen, a little more detailed, still not much. Just little notions that it might be nice to say things aloud, to tell other people, to have their promises solemnised even if they had been woven into every interaction for the past thousand years. It wasn’t something he had been set on but he felt the loss of it. Crowley’s commitment to him was a yoke around his neck, not a ring on his finger. 

Adam’s wife had answered the door shortly after sunrise, waddling around the weight of her pregnant belly, and politely told them that Adam was already at work. She didn’t remember Aziraphale, not quite. She’d had a vague idea that he’d been at the wedding. Her eyes lingered on Raphael, as if she knew something was off but couldn’t place it. 

Raphael had called them an ‘Uber’ and Aziraphale wondered when they’d stopped being called taxis. The driver kept glancing at them in the rearview mirror, or more specifically at Raphael, every time his gold-leaf eyes were raised the man shrank a little, the look of them setting off some mortal vulnerability that Aziraphale couldn’t understand. But Raphael didn’t look up often, eyes downturned, glued to his phone, flicking endlessly through flashy, glowing screens. He could hold a conversation, open doors and dodge pedestrians all while staring at the little screen, never raising his eyes to the humans who might wilt in the presence of an archangel. 

He moved through Adam’s ultra-modern office without raising his eyes. Aziraphale took it in. Adam was an important man now, just as he’d been an important boy. An office in a glass-and-chrome building, a secretary outside his door. 

A smile from Raphael and she let them pass. 

“Hello, Adam,” Aziraphale said. 

Adam sat behind an oversized desk, piles of papers either side of him. He looked like his father, his no-longer-father, with a strong jaw and golden curls and a presence that seemed bigger than his human body. Dog sat on a cushion beside the desk, peering up at them with a curious whine. He hadn’t aged a day, couldn’t and wouldn’t pass on without his master.

Adam smiled at Aziraphale, but when his eyes slid to Raphael he paused, confusion followed by surprise followed by understanding. 

“This is -” Aziraphale started.

“Raphael,” Adam finished for him. “Eve told me about you.”

Raphael’s eyes shot up from the phone, intense, Tantalus looking at the fruit just out of his reach. “She was here? Was she… is she okay?”

“Mm,” Adam nodded. “Take a seat.”

Aziraphale obeyed, as did Raphael, the two of them sitting lower and shorter than the devil’s son who held court in his office looking out over London. It was eerily reminiscent of Heaven, and in the shadowy corners, the low ceiling, it was a little like Hell, too. 

The secretary must have been lingering behind them because she appeared as if from nowhere to place bottles of chilled water in front of them before disappearing once more. 

“We’re trying to find her, when did you see her?” Raphael said. 

“She dropped in about a week ago. Wanted to meet me. We had a good chat, actually.” He looked at Raphael, eyes sweeping him over, again. “She’s not like me. Not like you’re like Crowley. That’s just weird, it’s like you’re the same person.”

Aziraphale glanced at Raphael, taking that in. Had it surprised him? Was he expecting something different? Familiar eyes staring out of a stranger’s face? He sat with rigid shoulders, mouth pulled down at the corners, eyes unblinking. 

“What did she say to you?”

“We talked a lot.” He looked so like his father, fingers steepled, eyes focused. Dog peered up at him, head cocked. “She wanted to know what happened here, and showed me Blank Slate. That’s a big plan you’re working on, ambitious. Might even call it evil.”

“She’s not evil,” Raphael snapped. “She’s following the plan, doing what she’s supposed to do. And has enough compassion to want to do it right.”

“No right way to commit genocide.”

“Humans do plenty of that anyway. Her way might mean that never happens again if she pulls it off. An end to violence.”

“It’s monstrous.”

“It’s merciful.”

“Gentlemen,” Aziraphale interrupted, “regardless of our opinions on the Apocalypse it’s in everyone’s best interest to find Eve and get her home. If you can help us at all Adam, we’d appreciate it.”

The two glared at each other and Aziraphale felt his shoulders slump another inch. He didn’t have the energy for this. They’d done their duty twenty years ago. His fight was supposed to be over. Their big stand, their final decision, throwing themselves at an uncertain fate in the name of humanity. 

It had felt easy compared to this. Crowley on the couch opposite him, a glass of grenache in hand, they had debated ethics for hours without him feeling tired or threatened. Crowley’s lovely, lively monologues about gorillas and whales, not ice cold stares over a granite-topped desk. It had all been so easy, no matter how hard it was. 

He just wanted Eve here and then gone and he could go back to bed. 

Adam softened, if barely. “Yeah, right. I told her not to get any ideas about using this world as a test subject but she said she wanted to do more ‘research’. We’ve got a truce, best I could do. She didn’t tell me where she was going, I don’t think she knows.”

“What was she interested in? What did you talk about?” Raphael asked. 

Adam paused, eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them, worry creasing his brow. “You two. My version of you two, Aziraphale and Crowley. She couldn’t believe you were a couple.”

Aziraphale kept his gaze even, refusing to cower even as a chill shot through him. Raphael’s golden eyes were on him, boring into him, he could see it from the corner of his eye but he wouldn’t… he couldn’t… not again. He wasn’t ashamed. His lip trembled and his stomach curdled but he  _ wouldn’t _ be ashamed. He wouldn’t be scared. He wouldn’t deny it. Loving Crowley was the best, most honest thing he’d ever done and if he’d been honest with himself from the start everything would still be right in his life. 

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “And… and did she say how she planned to… to research that?”

Adam shrugged, “Thought the Globe was her work, probably.”

“The Globe?”

“Don't you two watch the news?”

Raphael was slow, his phone forgotten in one limp hand, still staring at Aziraphale, but he shook himself free and brandished it again. He flicked at the screen for a few minutes before letting out a small, defeated grunt and turning the screen to Aziraphale. It was a newspaper, or whatever they called such things on the internet. 

The headline proudly read GLOBE THEATRE MIRACULOUSLY RESTORED and was accompanied by a photograph of the described miracle. The plaster-looking outer of the local recreation was now identical to how Aziraphale remembered it in the seventeenth century. It burned into his eyes, he could hear it, smell it, Shakespeare and Burbage, oranges sold for a small fortune and the ever-present odour of the Thames. The crush of the crowd at  _ Hamlet  _ when he’d come back from Edinburgh. 

_ Yes, alright, I’ll do that one, my treat. _

_ Oh, really? _ A smile that hurt his cheeks, that he couldn’t stop, and a heart full to bursting. 

Oh, God, he didn’t want to think about it. He survived by not thinking about it. This was his life now, the Crowley who had performed that miracle was gone and the loss of him was not bittersweet, there was no healing in the grieving, just more pain. All he could do was forget, he might make it through if he could forget. Those memories were a radioactive sample in a laboratory, a poison on a herbalist’s shelf. They had to be handled carefully, taken out in the safety of his shop, when he was alone and he couldn’t help it and then carefully wrapped up and put back in place before they destroyed him. 

He couldn’t go to that very place, alongside the hoard of tourists who would flock to the miracle and with Raphael’s judgement sitting on his shoulders like a stone, and keep himself all held together. He wasn’t up to that yet.

_ What do you care, angel? _ Crowley would say, the Crowley from before or after.  _ Just let him go on his merry way, Eve isn’t your problem. Don’t do your head in for this prick. _

Aziraphale felt so small in that office, in that moment, shrunk down just like the taxi driver, something so much bigger than himself pressing in on all sides. Because he wouldn’t abandon Raphael. He knew that about himself. Not because he was a good person, or it was the right thing to do, but because nothing had changed in twenty years. An archangel said  _ jump _ and he asked  _ how high? _ Even if he tried to wriggle out of it after the fact he had never been able to say  _ no. _

Oh, what did it matter now? He’d already lost the only thing they could take from him. Another sacrifice of dignity wasn’t going to tip the scales. 

“This means something to you,” Raphael said, voice low, still holding up the phone that Aziraphale’s eyes had long since stopped focussing on. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “It was an important place to us, once. I think. If she’s interested in my history it might make sense. I need to… I…” 

Aziraphale shook his head and rose from the chair. He needed just a few minutes, a minute, ten seconds even. It was all coiling around him too fast. The full threat of divine vengeance and not even the faint hope of Crowley to support him. He wasn’t going to die, Raphael still needed him, but the fear surged and surged and the wavebreak of common sense wasn’t enough to hold it back. 

His feet carried him away, out the door, past the secretary, every noise, footfall, breath echoing loud in the glass hallway. He couldn’t breathe properly. He knew it wouldn’t kill him but he’d learned from a thousand attacks that it didn’t need to. It was too loud, he couldn’t seem to regulate the volume of his wheezing and this place was just so quiet. 

He caught the tail end of Raphael blurting out an apology behind him, then loud footsteps chasing after him, the door thudding closed. 

Raphael walked beside him, keeping pace, silent. Another set of footsteps. Aziraphale kept his eyes on the ground. 

They were quiet in the elevator, in the lobby, down the front steps. He couldn’t look, unable to bear whatever he saw in those golden eyes. He was already at the curb, no taxi called and no destination in mind when Raphael spoke.

“Aziraphale.” That voice, that voice, couldn’t it be any other voice? “Aziraphale, we have to talk about this.”

“I know, alright?” Aziraphale said. “It’s heresy and I should have fallen. Heaven tossed me out for a reason.”

“I wasn’t going to…” Raphael cut himself off with a frustrated huff. “Did he do this to you?”

“Do what?”

Raphael stared at him incredulously. “What do you mean ‘ _ do what’ _ ? Look at yourself!”

Aziraphale did, overlaying his own sight with how the archangels of the past saw him. Overweight, unimpressive, incompetent and out-of-line. Thinking too much. Too human. Indulgent in gross matter and doomed to fail. The most absurd part might have been that even with his love removed Crowley still had a kinder disposition for him than those archangels.

“I know I’m not much of an angel,” he said softly. “But I’m the angel who is helping you.”

“That’s not what I - you’re not - agh!” Raphael clenched his hands into frustrated fists. “How long has this been going on?”

“Forever.”

“And how long have you been freaking out about pictures of old buildings?”

Aziraphale looked up, meeting Raphael’s eyes. There was a lot on his face, in his posture, in the way he held his hands and the set of his shoulders. Reproach seemed to war with concern in him, both mixed together into something aggressive and urgent, like a police officer who’d found him stumbling drunk and was trying to decide if he needed a bottle of water and a ride home or a smack over the head and a night in a prison cell. 

He could see the questions forming, answering themselves, assumptions bloating and bursting and reforming. Aziraphale saw himself again through the eyes of a healer. Nervous, easily cowed, tired and listless. The partner of a demon. Was he a fool and a collaborator, Raphael must have been asking himself, or a victim in need of rescue?

Oh, God, he looked like Crowley.

“It’s not what you think,” Aziraphale said, trying to shore up his words, keep them strong and steady. “He hasn’t hurt me. It was… It wasn’t… Heaven and Hell got to us, eventually. Punished us, after a fashion. Crowley would never hurt me, he’d never hurt anyone.”

“He’s a demon.”

“And I’m an angel and neither of us are very good at it, alright? Please let it be.” He didn’t know if he was telling the truth. Crowley had hurt people, intentionally and unintentionally, but not like Raphael was suggesting, he didn’t think. Six thousand years on earth was a long time, a great deal of things had happened, were still happening. 

Raphael eased off a little, the urgency in him fading but not disappearing. He looked up and down the city street like it held answers. “Can you function like this?”

“Do I have much of a choice?”

The archangel pulled out his phone. “Right. Nothing for you to see at the Globe, I’m going to drop you off at the bookshop and go on ahead. I’ll see if she’s there and meet you back in a few hours.”

Aziraphale nodded, breathless and grateful. Time for a nap or some tea, hopefully both. A little breathing space to process the events of the last twelve hours would help. Raphael likely thought he was so useless he wouldn’t be asked to do anything of importance going forward, just chime in a few words here and there like a local tour guide. 

“Might I borrow your telephone? I should let the others know what we’ve found out.”

Raphael tapped the screen a couple of times, stared at it for a long moment, then handed it over. Aziraphale had used Crowley’s once or twice, he knew the correct number by heart (by memory) and it took him only a moment to get the thing ringing. 

He glanced over at Raphael, trying his best to ignore the sympathy and suspicion radiating off him in equal parts. It didn’t matter. None of this mattered anymore. Aziraphale was surviving, it was all he could do, there was no room to flourish, no place for changing or growing or self-expression. Whatever Raphael saw, it was what he would have to accept. 

Something red fluttered down into Raphael’s hair but Aziraphale ignored it as the line connected. 

“ _ M’yeah? _ ” Crowley’s confused voice. A pink something fluttered down, and red, pale detritus on the breeze. 

“Ah, Crowley, it’s me, I’m... using Raphael’s… telephone…” His own voice faded as he noticed more and more pink and red and white, fluttering on the wind, coming down heavy now. He looked up a moment after Raphael did, and he let the phone drop from his ear.

Aziraphale pinched the soft petals from his shoulder, getting a closer look, making sure he was seeing right. He turned around, spinning full circle, watching as it came down in sheets, like rain, covering the grey streets in soft colours. 

It was raining rose petals in central London. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com/).


	7. sparks that have all hearts enkindled

Humans had always been clever little things. Adam had scrambled the day of the Apocalypse for them and they’d only met Anathema and Newt for five minutes anyway, but Anathema took one glance at Esther and her eyes widened, her posture stiffened and her mouth fell into an ‘o’ of… surprise? Fear? Horror?

“You’re a demon,” she said, in the doorway of Jasmine Cottage, a horseshoe burning red hot above them. 

She was still lovely, twenty years tacked on, a few wrinkles showing around her eyes and a couple of dark hairs turned grey. She’d gone a bit less eccentric over the years, a businesswoman and a mother now rather than a teenager with a mythical mission, but there was still something in the cut of her clothes, the round glasses. The kid was still in there. 

Anathema’s eyes darted to Crowley, looking for confirmation, or a cue on how to react. He was struck with the annoying thought that he was the  _ good _ demon in her eyes, the one who would protect her from the interloper. He really had to work on his reputation. 

“Oh, come now, dear,” Esther cooed. “That’s a bit judgemental.”

Fight or flight kept humans safe when they were in danger with only the minor side effect of making them act like irrational, panicky animals. 

They hadn’t exactly decided on lying to the humans. Crowley had hoped that Adam’s whammy would leave them just enough memory to know Crowley wasn’t a threat and not enough to identify what was off about Esther. An angel and a demon showing up at your door was interesting enough for anyone to hear them out. Two demons showing up at your door was a sign to panic, call a priest and absolutely not agree to any deals, arrangements or suggestions offered. So, plan A was out the window and they hadn’t discussed plan B. 

“Relax, book girl,” he tried. “If we wanted to cause trouble we wouldn’t knock on the front door.”

She glanced between the two of them, hesitant, but her shoulders relaxed a little and her mouth quirked in annoyance. 

“Aren’t you going to invite us in?” Esther asked, sticky sweet. “We’ve been travelling all night.”

“Do you need an invitation?”

“We’re not vampires. I was being polite.”

Anathema looked to Crowley, back to Esther, then briefly at her shoes before standing back to allow them inside. 

Crowley had to rally this. They could just miracle them into compliance but it always left a bad taste in his mouth, and humans did their best work through the kind of impulsiveness he could never dream up. It would go better for him if the humans  _ wanted _ to help, if they could be persuaded into cooperation by non-tempting means. Like Aziraphale did, with the smiles and the polite requests and  _ oh, if you wouldn’t mind terribly. _

Oh, hell, was he going to have to play the angel part? He wasn’t sure Esther could if she wanted to. He wasn’t sure  _ he _ could if he wanted to. 

He tried a smile on Anathema as he walked past her but it felt wrong on his face and she looked more alarmed by it than comforted. 

“Uh, come to the kitchen,” she said, guiding their way, “I’ll make some coffee.”

“Who is it?” A voice sounded from somewhere in the house. 

“Come to the kitchen,” Anathema raised her trembling voice. Her hands were trembling, too. 

It wasn’t him. Was it? Humans didn’t react this way to just him. Not that he made a habit of knocking on their doors in broad daylight, not the ones who knew what he was. But this wasn’t the all-out terror humans showed when confronted with Hastur or Ligur. No, she wanted to have this conversation.

Mel. It reminded him of working with Mel. Scared humans sat down in their own living room to sell their souls, trying to soldier through the conversation. A big, fat temptation plonked in front of their nose, something juicy enough to make them fight against the animal instinct and hear him out. Official work, for him, done under the heel of Beelzebub’s boot. A prince, an archdemon, and him, playing the big bad wolf when he knew Red Riding Hood would wander off the path on her own, anyway. 

Anathema started punching buttons on her little pod coffee machine not so different from the one at the rest stop. He didn’t have anything to tempt her with. 

“I take it you’re here for a reason,” Anathema said, keeping her hands busy. Her stare had always been intense. The bike accident, the airbase - dark, knowing eyes that saw too much, not dulled by the barrier of glasses between them. 

“The Antichrist is missing,” Crowley said. No reason to give her too much information, bog her down in dimensional philosophy. 

“Do you think..?” 

“Not the end of the world. Just, y’know, Heaven and Hell stuff. Need to find the kid.”

“He’s not a kid anymore,” Anathema said.

“He is to us.”

Anathema was setting a glass coffee cup down in front of Esther as Crowley’s phone rang. He watched, waiting, judging whether to leave the two alone, even nominally, but he didn’t have much choice. An unknown caller flashed on his screen and if this was a telemarketer he was going to curse them until they were sorry they’d ever seen a phone. 

“M’yeah?” he answered, stepping just outside the door so they could keep talking.

“ _ Ah, Crowley, it’s me, I’m… _ ” Aziraphale sounded distracted on the other end of the line. “. _..using Raphael’s… telephone… _ ” 

“What’ve you got?” Crowley paused, waited for an answer, but heard nothing but the rush of London traffic. “‘Ziraphale? What have you got?”

Another long pause before the fussy, harried voice started up again. “ _ Oh, I’m sorry. It appears Eve is performing some miracles. It’s raining rose petals. _ ”

“In London?”

“ _ Central London, yes. It’s not the only miracle. We spoke to Adam. _ ”

Crowley let the silence linger on for a few seconds. “Well are you going to tell me what he said or do I need to guess?”

“ _ It’s us, Crowley. _ ”

“Will you please stop talking in riddles?” he snapped. 

“ _ Eve… she’s… Raphael and Esther aren’t a couple. Adam said the only thing that piqued her interest was our… our… _ ”

History. Relationship. Love. The angel was cracking up on the other end of the line, and not through bad reception. He had to deal with that. Eventually Esther and her nice perfume were going to be gone and all he’d have left was a fragile angel he couldn’t heal and an eternity to face down. He couldn’t let Aziraphale fall apart completely. 

“Breathe, angel. Is Raphael with you?”

“ _ I - yes. _ ”

“Is he taking care of you?” Crowley didn’t like asking. He didn’t like the idea of Raphael with his too-casual manbun and his pretty gold eyes being the one to look out for Aziraphale. It started a twisting sensation in his chest he couldn’t quite name, but it was better than Aziraphale shaking himself to pieces alone. 

“ _ Yes, he’s being very… being very… _ ” Aziraphale trailed off, distracted as he so often was. 

“Good. Do what he says. We’ll get what we can on our end.”

“ _ Look up the Globe. She’s doing something. I can’t say what. _ ”

“Right, got it.”

Crowley ended the call and started googling the Globe, one eye on the kitchen. Anathema was about to crawl out of her skin, she had such a case of the heebie jeebies. 

Newt appeared in the hallway and Crowley could have painted a picture of him before ever seeing him. Newt plus twenty years, plus a sweater vest and thicker glasses and greying hair. Newt who definitely had at least a passing interest in model trains. Time flowed one direction and for most humans their path was set when they were young, only minor deviations allowed or desired. 

Newt eyed him carefully as he walked past, keeping as much distance between the two of them as he could, bumping into the kitchen door frame as he went. 

He saw Esther and jerked back, bumping the door frame again. 

Crowley moved past him, catching the dainty, theatrical, ever-so-slightly-wounded sigh Esther gave the room at large. “I can see my presence is upsetting you both. I know it’s unusual for humans but it’s very natural for our kind to change their appearances and names from time to time. Please, let me set your minds at ease.”

Esther wiggled her shoulders, busking her wings in the ether then dragged them out, a shock of pearl-white in the morning sunlight, her wingspan enormous in the kitchen of Jasmine Cottage. 

Crowley let all his breath out through his nose and hoped the wheezing sound was only in his head. 

If it was a miracle, it was a subtle one, the way the light caught her platinum hair like a halo, the glint of her lipgloss, the heaven-white wings shining like mother-of-pearl. An angel. He would have bet his life on it. He should have been looking at the humans to see how the lie landed but he wasn’t, he was looking at those wings. A surge of  _ want _ ran through him so strong he had to fight the urge to lean forward and bury his face, his hands, in her feathers. Grip onto them and breathe in the heaven scent, try to taste her beauty, to devour it, to keep a piece of it with him. 

One of his hands reached out before his brain caught up, carding through the cloud-soft feathers. They were as silky as they looked, and when a long feather came off in his hands he pinched it between two fingers, gripping it as tight as he could without daring to risk crushing it. 

Esther peered around him curiously, head cocked. “Yes it has been a while, hasn’t it, dear?”

“Mm,” Crowley agreed, trying to pick her scent out of the air. Flowers. Cream. Definitely cream, a whole lot of other stuff but clotted cream with vanilla through it was all he could think, the only thing he could focus on outside the perfume. He stroked the edges of the white feather in his hand, the silky edge dragging along his fingertips as he traced Esther’s radiant face with his eyes. That nose, he needed to press his lips to that nose and watch it scrunch up as she giggled. 

“Alright,” Anathema said quietly, arms crossed over her chest. She was still wary, mouth soft with all the words she wasn’t saying. She looked to Crowley, then back, then shook her head. “Sorry, Aziraphale, it’s strange to us.”

“Not at all, dear girl. Please, call me Esther.” She pulled her wings back in, suddenly four human-shaped beings in a small kitchen in Tadfield. 

Crowley looked at the feather in his hand, twisted it to catch the light, an aching in his gut at the loss of those wings. Maybe she’d bring them out again. Maybe later, tonight, when all the humans were asleep, he could ask her, goad her, bargain with her. 

“So what do we do?” Anathema was saying, but Crowley’s eyes were on that feather. He could still smell cream, but everything underneath it was welling up, too. Wings burned black in fire and sulfur, his wings had burned, it had been the worst pain he’d ever felt, the first thing he could remember after the muddled haze of the Before. 

They weren’t angel’s wings. She’d clawed her way aboveground just like he had, black scales breaking through his skin, acid yellow engulfing his eyes. The serpent had broken free of him, to crawl on his belly, to taste the air, be crushed under the heel. The feather, the wings, weren’t angel-white, they were dove-white. The pretty painted pigeon was there under clotted cream, the vermin, the scavenger, bleached pestilence-white, sapped of all colour like her hair and her vacant gaze. 

Thick cream and pigeon was not a pleasant smell, if he thought about it, it should have had him reeling. Instead he darted out his tongue to wet his lips and smell it better. 

A clatter against the table jerked Crowley out of his trance. Newt had dropped four pairs of scissors on the white laminate kitchen table and was looking around expectantly. 

_ Get a fucking grip _ , Crowley told himself, letting his hand drop, still clutched around the feather. Esther was working some whammy on him and it was making him an idiot and a liability. 

“Wassat?” Crowley asked, trying to catch up with the others. 

Newt gave a shy shrug. “It’s how you hunt witches.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	8. breaks itself of that which it encounters

Aziraphale didn’t sleep. He tried, lying in his bed, covers tucked under his arms, body lax against the mattress, but sleep didn’t come. His eyes lingered on the rays of sunlight creeping in from the edge of his curtains, his mind couldn’t let go of the bustle of traffic outside. He could lie here for days, he knew, eyes focussed on a blank bit of wall, hoping that sleep would claim him but not expecting it. 

His mind ran over, and over again, what Raphael might find at the Globe, what might damn him again. What might an Antichrist find, in residue? The smiles, the laughter, the agreement? Edinburgh or Hamlet? What would Raphael make of it?

He lay there for an hour, trying his best to rest as Raphael had requested, then rose again, vision fuzzy, and dressed. 

The bell of the bookshop door chimed just before midday. Aziraphale wasn’t ready, hunched in a chair in the back room, but he knew he had to be up to the task so he sucked in a deep breath and rose. 

Raphael was… It hit him all at once again. The saunter that wasn’t quite a swagger, the well-tailored clothes, the lock of hair that escaped its tie to curl around his face. One hand stuffed into his pocket, the other wrapped around his phone. 

“Raphael,” he said, wishing his voice was stronger. “What did you find?” 

“Nothing. Bunch of excited archaeologists. She’s long gone.” 

Aziraphale let out the breath he’d been holding all morning, something in his chest unfurling. He shouldn’t have felt unsafe with Raphael, he’d been nothing but kind and more understanding than Aziraphale had any right to expect. Yet something lingered, something of Gabriel, of Michael, the feeling whenever an archangel stepped in his bookshop and he’d had to play defense. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale sighed. “I’m sorry, it sounded so promising. What’s our next step, then?”

Raphael tapped decisively at his phone and slid it into his pocket, giving Aziraphale his full attention. 

“Lunch.”

“Lunch?”

“Lunch,” Raphael confirmed with a nod. “I’m feeling peckish. I know just the place.”

Aziraphale didn’t know what to do with his hands, grasping the fingers of one hand, then the other, not sure what to think of Raphael inviting him to lunch. It wasn’t angelic. It was _gross matter_. He could see the confusion and disapproval on Gabriel’s face as he looked down at Aziraphale’s favourite sushi. 

But… but Raphael didn’t look upset by the idea. He was suggesting it. It was only polite to agree. And being polite was angelic, he thought, perhaps. It wasn’t demonic. It wasn’t even very human. 

“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale said, hands still twitching between themselves. “How rude of me to not feed my guest.”

“Come on, then, just up the road.” Raphael held out a hand, guiding Aziraphale ahead of him, and pressing gently into the small of his back as they passed at the door. Aziraphale laid a hand on Raphael’s shoulder, steadying himself. 

He didn’t freeze, it wasn’t a shock, but it lingered, the second stretching out far too long. Just like a thousand touches they had and hadn’t shared, before everything, excuses to touch, feel the strength of each other. Things he hadn’t even noticed they did, until they stopped. The hand on his back, the warm breath on his cheek, knowing it would be nothing more, then he was out the door. The brisk air and the noise of the traffic drove away the warmth.

They walked, a respectable distance apart, through the humans who might have noticed them, or not, it was hard to tell in the city. 

“There was really nothing at the Globe?” Aziraphale asked. “Nothing out of place at all?”

“S’just a building,” Raphael said. “They’re playing _Hamlet_ all week, much to their surprise. That mean anything to you?”

“I… yes. But nothing useful, I’m afraid.”

“Right. Did seem a bit weird to pick something so obscure.”

No arrangement, no favour. “You’ve not seen it, then?”

“Once, I think. Bit gloomy.”

“You prefer the funny ones?” Aziraphale asked with a helpless huff of laughter. 

“I like the histories,” Raphael said with a little kick in his step, an upturned quirk of his lip. “Nothing better than some historical fiction. Can’t believe they only did six seasons of _Downton_. Not that I, y’know, indulge in the human stuff so much. Gets a bit boring down here, is all, waiting around to thwart the dove. And… Eve… she needed human stuff.”

“You don’t have to explain,” Aziraphale said. He could hear a little something of his own voice in Raphael. Denying and explaining and propping up his cover. “I’m the last to judge, I’m sure you’ve noticed. _Hamlet_ was a… a gift. For me. I enjoyed it, so Crowley… He made sure I had people to share it with.”

“Mm, right.” Raphael darkened at the mention of Crowley and Aziraphale braced for a lecture, but it didn’t come.

Raphael led him to an upscale steakhouse. It didn’t seem to fit. Eating at all didn’t seem Raphael’s style but if he’d been pressed Aziraphale would have imagined French or Italian food to be his preference. As strange and dissonant as the idea of him watching the Shakespearian histories. 

But he led Aziraphale in, sat him down and ordered so firmly that it seemed natural. “Two of the biggest steaks you’ve got, medium rare, loads of potatoes. And some water.”

Aziraphale looked at his own hands, clenched tight around the white linen napkin he had seized without noticing. Part of it was too normal - the high glass windows, the relaxed humans all around them, the gentle bustle of a popular restaurant. Raphael looked the part well enough, the well-off professional out to a casual lunch with a friend, but he was too clean for it somehow. Everything was happening around him, not with him. Like Gabriel in a sushi restaurant. He remembered Raphael passing his tea from hand to hand, never bringing it to his lips. This all seemed so designed. Planned. 

“You don’t eat,” Aziraphale said.

“No.”

Aziraphale swallowed. “Is this some kind of test, then?”

The waiter returned with a tall glass pitcher of water, the kind that could fill a bathtub with holy water, and Raphael thanked him with a smile. 

Slowly, deliberately, he poured a glass of water and pushed it to Aziraphale. “What would I be testing for?”

Aziraphale didn’t touch the water. He wasn’t sure he could swallow. “I must disgust you.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I betrayed Heaven, averted the Great Plan and took a demon for a lover. I’m not so great a fool as to think you would approve. I know what they say about such things in Heaven.” He risked a glance at Raphael, seeing nothing in his face, no hint of agreement or rebuttal, so he carried on. “And I might be a very poor angel, but I _don’t need to eat.”_

Raphael watched him, eyes flitting over his face, statue still and unblinking. He stayed in place and Aziraphale had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from talking more. He knew he’d ramble until he had no secrets left if he didn’t keep it in check. He’d spill his heart out on this pretty white tablecloth, let this archangel watch him search through the viscera and try to put it all back together with trembling hands.

Raphael rested his chin on his hand. “How are your wings, dove?”

“My what?”

“Your wings. Still nice and white?”

“Of… of course. Why would you-?”

“See here’s the thing,” Raphael cut him off, straightening in his chair with a sharp breath. “Here’s the thing. You are my best chance of finding Eve. My world depends on you being able to think and talk and be my tour guide. And you can sit here and tell me you’re fine but you’re not.”

“I _am.”_

“You say that, but your nice clothes don’t fit you right. Like maybe you’ve lost a lot of weight without noticing.”

Aziraphale glanced down. His trousers were sitting too low on his hips, his waistcoat crumpling loose. The folds had worn seams into the velveteen - how long had it been sitting wrong? He didn’t look unhealthily thin, there was still padding to his belly and hips, but Raphael was right. Things had changed and he hadn’t even noticed.

The waiter returned, miraculously quickly, two heavy plates in hand. He set them down on the table and Aziraphale studied the food. It wasn’t his usual fare but it looked good. Something he might have treated himself to on occasion, once upon a time. It should have made his mouth water. 

Raphael’s hand closed over his and he startled. Raphael held firm, those precious, fine-boned fingers wrapped around his hand in comfort, in solidarity, in support. No matter how many times he made love with Crowley ( _sex, it’s sex_ ) they didn’t hold hands anymore. 

“You don’t need to eat to survive,” Raphael said gently. “But you need to eat. Protein, carbs, fat, you understand?”

Aziraphale nodded, chin trembling.

“And whoever has called you disgusting, or a traitor, or a _very poor angel_ , it wasn’t me. Your wings are white and your eyes are blue and God knows you better than I do. Judgement’s not my department.”

He nodded again, trying to swallow down the shaky breaths that threatened to escape. Raphael grabbed his hand more tightly and he responded, letting their fingers intertwine. Was this what it meant to have a friend? 

“Alright,” he said, finally managing to swallow down the urge to cry. “I understand.”

“Good. Now eat.” Raphael let go of his hand and pushed the food and water closer.

Aziraphale obeyed, carving off a decent-sized bite of the steak, which did smell rather good, and bringing it to his lips. He hadn’t been eating. It hadn’t been a protest or intentional self-harm, he just didn’t feel like it most days. Indulging in life’s small pleasures seemed trivial and unimportant next to the weight of his grief. And even when he found himself enjoying something he would, by force of habit, think _I ought to tell Crowley about this_ and whatever treat he had on hand would turn to ash in his mouth as he remembered. 

But the steak was good. The potatoes were good. The sauce was good. And Raphael agreed, when he took a few small bites of his own meal and they managed to chatter about the flavour, the notes in the jus, and, when Aziraphale talked him around to it, the complement of the fine tempranillo. 

And Raphael was right. Aziraphale didn’t eat quickly, or finish his meal, but he felt better, the fog that lingered in the corners of his eyes lifting. 

Raphael would reach over every so often to squeeze his hand again, sending a complicated flutter of pleasure and guilt through him. He found himself smiling shyly back at each contact, lips curling up without his permission as he ducked his head and blamed the blush on the wine. 

By the time the waiter delivered a desert menu Aziraphale could feel his cheeks turned rosy with wine and food, and the heavy food smothered the constant anxious flutter in his belly. He might have slept then, if he wasn’t needed. 

And he was, he was needed. For maybe the first time in twenty years he had a purpose, and Raphael was being far too patient with him in delaying. 

“This is all very lovely,” Aziraphale said. “Won’t you miss any of it when it’s gone? In your world.” 

“No.” Raphael said it simply, without any malice. “Well, maybe. Lots of nice things humans do, along with the bad, aren’t there? But Eve wants to make something new, so... new restaurants, new foods, new music. Whole new world of nice things for humans to do.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

Raphael twisted the stem of his wine glass between two fingers. “Nah. Change doesn’t come easy to anyone, least of all us. But hope, that’s our business isn’t it?”

“Hope for what?” Aziraphale was almost scared of the answer. Hope for death and destruction didn’t seem like the kind he’d been taught to have.

“For something better. You know we’ve been to lunch before, once. Eve insisted, she wanted us to eat together like humans, like a _family_.” The shadow of a grin passed over Raphael’s face. “Esther poisoned my food. And, to be fair, I also poisoned hers, and Eve ended up with two dead corporations at her table. That was around the time she banned us from discorporating each other.”

“You _what_?” Aziraphale gasped. “You poisoned her-?”

“Yes. But my point is, my point is that I had to walk away from the idea of ever having a nice lunch with you. And now I’m here, with you, in a way I’d never have guessed. Just because we don’t know what hand tomorrow’s going to deal us doesn’t mean we can’t hope it’s a good one. Maybe even better than yesterday.”

Aziraphale nodded, understanding sinking in. “You trust Eve.”

“Completely.”

The waiter returned, holding a single plate, and set a roast apple before Aziraphale, smothered in butterscotch sauce. The aroma of burnt sugar curled at the back of his palate, so strong he could already taste it. 

He looked at Raphael, who was looking back at him, leaning forward ever so slightly. Watching him. Still and unblinking. Asking him with his whole body to take a bite. 

“A...” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “A bit of a controversial choice, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

The apple sat glossy before him, expertly prepared, sure to be delicious. Raphael was watching him with such intensity but he really didn’t seem to understand the question. 

Because apples meant nothing to him. The ruby pin in Esther’s hair was a pomegranate. 

“Nothing,” Aziraphale said, smile tight, then raised his knife and fork and cut into the apple. 

The skin of the apple gave way, the sliver of flesh underneath, warping the shape of it, and he cut into the hollow core. 

The change in smell hit him immediately, dark butterscotch giving way to roses, filling his lungs, his mind, the air around him. Aziraphale took a deep breath. A bright pink-red syrup spilled over the white plate and wisps of pink vapour escaped into the air, more than it should have been able to hold. The scent, the taste of roses bloomed around them. 

“Was this supposed to be a rose dish?” Aziraphale asked. 

“No,” Raphael said. “It’s Eve.”

Aziraphale glanced around, watching as the humans gasped in wonder, pink-red flooding and flowing and pooling from apples, from steaks, from creamers. A wave of crimson and sugar-sweet air bursting out around the restaurant. 

“Should we be worried?” Aziraphale asked. 

Raphael shrugged. “Doesn’t seem harmful to me. Eat your apple, dove.”

Aziraphale did as instructed, taking the first bite, and the roses and butterscotch together were sublime. He ate the rest, a bite at a time, trying not to think about Sandford, about peony scones and peony wine, about loving Crowley so much they made something together and it had been sweet and funny and exasperating. Flowers that covered everything, crept into every crevice and spilled from every vessel.

When they left the bemused humans to their rosie ordeal and made their way back toward the bookshop, Raphael kept close, one hand hovering at the small of Aziraphale’s back as though he would stumble any moment. 

“Did you sleep this morning?”

“No,” Aziraphale confessed. 

“Do you think you can now?”

“We have so much to do, it can wait.”

At the bookshop door Raphael stopped him with a hand firm around his elbow, facing him so close they were sharing air. “Not what I asked.”

Aziraphale met his lovely gold eyes, full of concern and determination. He sighed and nodded. “Yes, I can sleep.”

“Good.” Raphael opened the door and ushered him through. “I’ll do some reading, you’ll get some rest, and tonight we’re going to talk about what Eve’s trying to do. Slowly, at your own pace, we’re going to talk. Yes?”

Aziraphale nodded again. He wasn’t excited by the prospect, but it seemed so much more bearable than it had in the morning. He let himself be shooed upstairs, into the barren bedroom. He crawled into his pyjamas and then under the covers. He closed his eyes. 

He imagined Crowley sitting across from him in a restaurant, gently but firmly insisting he eat something. He imagined Crowley’s hand closing over his own to ground and support him. He imagined Crowley putting off important plans to let him rest and recuperate. It was just a passing fancy, he knew it wasn’t the truth, would never be the truth, but having Raphael so closely imitate what he really wanted had taken the edge off the pain of missing it. Maybe he’d never feel this way again, but for today he could think of these things and feel safe, and let it lull him to a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	9. turned backwards, rolling retrograde

Crowley’s attempt to avoid the scissors and just Google  _ weird stuff _ hadn’t yielded the results he’d hoped for. It had definitely shown him some stuff, but not what he, or anyone else he hoped, was looking for. 

It turned out the world was about 40% weird stuff and most of it never made major newspapers, so he was stuck with reams of local newspapers from the past few weeks, miracled in for their researching pleasure. For every one possible lead he or Esther or Anathema found, Newton Pulsifer found ten, a neat stack of newspaper clippings growing steadily beside him. 

It was boring work and Crowley found himself getting distracted by the horoscopes more often than not. Or by Esther, by the click of pink-painted nails and the way she shimmered in the light, tiny glasses perched on her scrunched-up nose. 

After an hour flicking through tedious newspapers in a white-laminate human kitchen, Crowley hadn’t expected the flicker of panic that shot through him when he saw the dark-eyed child hovering at the door. Anathema and Newt hadn’t either, from the way they both startled and Anathema shot to her feet.

“Tabitha, you need to go upstairs,” she said, something dark and urgent in her voice. 

They hadn’t completely settled down about Esther, but that urgent warning was about Crowley, he knew that. Honestly, a little insulting, he’d never hurt a kid in his life. 

But Esther… he didn’t know. The other demons weren’t agreed on it, some thought hurting kids was just fish-in-a-barrel. Others made it their signature move. And he couldn’t tell what kind of sparkle was in Esther’s eye when she saw Tabitha. 

But it was fine. Esther, it turned out, was a brilliant piano teacher who helped Tabitha through her scales and into a rousing round of chopsticks, unaware or indifferent to the tense glances being shot her way from the kitchen. 

Looking back on it, Crowley wondered if he hadn’t been overreacting. About everything, maybe. She was a demon but she was Aziraphale as well. The man, the man at the rest stop, that had been bad. But if he hadn’t died Crowley knew how his life would have gone, as surely as he had predicted Newt’s sweater vest. A big, angry man who liked to scream at women for minor inconveniences? That was a bad guy, and whoever was waiting at home for him was likely getting worse than shouting. Maybe it hadn’t been so bad. Maybe he was just expecting her to behave like Aziraphale and twisting himself out of shape when she didn’t. 

That was always the problem with Hell, he could never tell where he stood. Dark, dreadful things could be lurking just under the surface and it was a surface he was leaning closer and closer into. He swayed toward Esther with every breath, an afterimage of her wings burned into his eyes, drifted toward her perfume with every breeze. He always had one eye on his work and the other, the other wandering to her, up the curve of her spine, along her sure, firm fingers, lost in the warm smile she had for the little girl.

They worked like that most of the day, Crowley was on cross-checking duty. As they found each potential miracle he was dragged back to reality to decide if it related back to himself or Aziraphale or both of them. And the thing about globetrotting for six thousand years was that it meant they’d been everywhere. Every insignificant little village had at one time been a temptation or blessing. Could she have been in Belfast? Of course, he’d stayed there for a decade in the 1600s. Liverpool? They’d gone to the street fair in the 1800s. Nowheresville, podunk, backwater town #2834? Yes, certainly, it had been a pioneer town, or where some saint first made landfall, or just had a really good local shiraz blend once upon a time. 

“Quarrendon?” Newt held out the newspaper clipping. “They say someone built a hut in the old ruins, it might be one of those restorations Adam’s been doing.”

Esther had long since sent Tabitha away to do her homework and continued plinking idly at the piano herself. She’d sunk into something soft, old jazz, now the kid was out of the way, her eyes happily closed, swaying to her own music. A lounge singer from the 30s, a silver screen siren, someone who made it their business to sound good enough to bedazzle and look good enough to eat. 

“Yeah,” Crowley said, heart giving a twist in his chest, not looking away from Esther. “I know Quarrendon.”

Esther gave no sign that it meant anything to her, that she recognised the name. She glanced back at him from the corner of her eye and gave him a sly smile. She started playing with a bit more intention, the opening strains of a song he couldn’t quite place in the carpet-muffled living room. 

“Is it worth checking?” Newt asked, uncertain. Poor kid, still a kid, even in his 40s, still so unsure of himself even with a gorgeous wife and kid and millions in the bank. Like a dog always waiting for the swat across his nose. 

“Yeah. We’ll head up there. Might be other stuff too, though.”

“ _ It's not the pale moon that excites me _ ,” Esther began to croon softly, “ _ that thrills and delights me, oh no, it's just the nearness of you… _ ”

The way her grin brightened as she sang, her eyes never leaving his, suggested she was teasing him. And much, much to his own annoyance it was working. He traced the line of her with his eyes, wished he was in a comfortable chair with a scotch and could listen to her playing love songs all night. She’d look just right in a smoky bar, making eyes at him over the piano.

“We should go,” Crowley said. He’d already dealt with a lot today, the wings, the smile, reminders of Quarrendon. And the humans were suspicious enough, if he let Esther wind him up any further he was going to do something regrettable right there in front of them. 

They left early, with promises from the humans they’d keep searching and stay in contact. Crowley made sure there was a B&B in Tadfield they’d booked out and paid for a week in advance, somewhere to decompress, to talk, to sleep while they were playing Eve’s game. 

Esther watched him the whole way there, eyes dark, smile playful. She didn’t call him out on his reaction to the wings, or the way he’d been watching her or anything else, but it didn’t feel like she hadn’t noticed, it felt like she was waiting. His heart beat an insistent rhythm in his ears as the promise of privacy crept closer, as he tried to figure out what he was going to do about it, or what she would. 

He held the door for her at the little cottage he’d rented, watched her as she slipped past, one sure hand landing on his bicep as she did, searing the touch into his skin. 

As soon as she was in the door she sighed and started pulling hairpins from her hair, letting the curls tumble freely around her shoulders, then, with a shudder, let loose her wings. All together it was mouth-watering, soft and touchable. Cloudfluff curls and downy feathers. She slouched onto the settee, lounging along it and stretching her wings like they’d been cooped up for an eon. 

Crowley leaned against the door frame, sunglasses fast on his face and hands deep in his pockets, and watched her. Those wings were beautiful. Lovelier than Aziraphale’s, thicker and shinier, less depth to the colour. She sunk into the settee, one leg crooked, her dress riding up to show a tantalising sliver of pale skin above her stocking. 

Aziraphale and not Aziraphale and something else, something alien to him that knocked him all off course. She took a pomegranate from the fruit bowl on the end table and a little silver paring knife, began cutting into it with quick, expert strokes. 

She noticed him staring, she must have. He wasn’t being subtle, all but looming over her. He’d taken notice of what she could and couldn’t see, the shapes, the colours, and she couldn’t miss a shadow lingering in the doorway. But she didn’t look at him as she tore the pomegranate apart by feel. Fluffed her curls. Left streaks of iridescent red along her lips, beading on her fingertips.

No, she noticed him. Aziraphale would be giving him space if he behaved like this. Some other Aziraphale would be ignoring him, caring nothing about him. Esther… he hadn’t figured Esther out yet. All he knew was that she looked so, so soft. 

“Come and share this with me, Crowley,” she said gently, patting the settee at her side. There was nowhere for him to sit except the ground next to her. Nowhere but nose-to-knee with silk-covered legs, white wings stretched out around him. So he went. 

He folded up on the fluffy rug beside her, leaning against the edge of the cushions. He could lean his head against her thigh if he just let himself relax. She smelled… beneath a thick layer of perfume and cream and skin cream and feathers, something… something... almost right. So close he could taste it. 

Esther held out a hand to him, a clutch of pomegranate seeds staining her skin pink and red. Crowley thought about taking her by the wrist, licking the sweet fruit from her hand and sucking her fingers clean. Thought about what she might taste like underneath the juice. 

Instead he took her hand in his own, cupping it to hold it steady, and plucked the fruit from her palm, ate if from his own hand. Her hands were so soft. 

She shifted her weight, sinking deeper into the cushions, her thighs clenching and stretching as they took her weight and settled her again. Strong legs, strong all over, with another outline of comfort drawn over the top. The sight of those thighs working pooled warm in his gut. And then her red-stained hand dropped to her own leg, leaving a bloody thumbprint on the delicate skin just above her stocking, a blue vein winding its way just below porcelain skin. 

Crowley watched that streak of red, hypnotised by it. 

“You can do what you want to do,” Esther murmured. Crowley’s eyes shot to hers, searching for something in her gaze although it was turned to the middle distance, knowing him by feel and smell and sound alone. A soft smile played on her lips. Gentle, understanding. His eyes flicked of their own accord between that forgiving smile and the streak of red. 

Something reeled up inside him, spread through his veins, seized his hands into tight claws. He  _ couldn’t _ . It was too fast, it was a trap. He wasn’t allowed to just see her and want her and have her, there were prices to pay first. If he touched her, all that softness and warmth would be sapped out of her, calcified and crumbled from the inside. He’d be punished, by Heaven or Hell, or more likely, Esther herself. 

Crowley was making the first move to pull away when she threaded her fingers through his hair, petting him. “Do what you want to do,” she said. “Then answer a question for me.”

The words hung in the air, seeping into his brain slowly, comprehension blooming. She was offering, but at a price. Something of hers for something of his. A deal with a devil. 

Crowley shuddered with relief, pitching forward, everything uncoiling at once. Not love, not tenderness, but a transaction. An arrangement. What  _ he _ wanted for what  _ she _ wanted, because she knew what she wanted. 

He pressed his open mouth to her inner thigh, licking the nectar from her skin with a keen in the back of his throat. He buried his nose in the skin there, devouring her like a man starving. Silk, just like he’d thought, soft and giving and tasting like something he’d forgotten.

Crowley found himself with both hands sunk into her leg, holding her still as she wiggled delightedly under his attentions. He licked her clean and kept licking, kissing, threatening to sink his teeth into the tender skin, trying to imprint himself on her, or her on himself, or anything to make this moment stretch out longer than it should. He was going to drown in the smell of her, in the little, breathless moans he drew out of her. 

And oh, oh, fuck it was good. The softness and sweetness, something  _ good _ for the first time in an age. He wasn’t bored, wasn’t angry, wasn’t thinking about eternity and dreading it, he was just buried face-first in those lovely thighs, panting for air he didn’t need. 

Another second, or an hour, and she tugged lightly on his hair. “Enough now.”

Crowley let himself be pulled back, light-headed, still so close to her skin. He looked up at her and thanked Whoever was listening that she couldn’t see him, couldn’t look at him when he was all wrecked and broken open. So close to begging her for more. 

“What do you want to know, then?” he asked, voice wobbling dangerously over the words and wishing, wanting,  _ needing  _ her to tell him to forget it, she didn’t need her pound of flesh from him. He could stay there, against her, breathing her in for as long as he needed. 

But she didn’t. She cocked her head, did her best impression of looking him right in the eyes. “If you want to fuck the angel so badly, why don’t you?”

Crowley slumped back, putting any distance between them, drawing away from the hand in his hair. Esther fussed over the hem of her dress, covering the blossoming purple bruise, the pink indent from the rim of his sunglasses. 

Of course she knew, he’d known she knew. And she wasn’t the kind soul who might ignore what she knew. Not for his sake. 

So he sat back, braced himself away from her on one arm, still curled on the floor at her side like a dog, and lied as best he could. “I do.”

“You do?”

“I do fuck him. No story there.”

She laughed. “Then why are you so, what’s the word? Twitterpated. Or should I say randy?”

Crowley knew he’d shown his hand. Shown everything for the chance to get his hands on her, his mouth. And no matter how frustrating or stubborn or naive Aziraphale had ever been, no version of him would ever be stupid. 

“It was Mephistopheles,” he said. “She took it from me. I gave it to her, I should say. How I feel about him.”

Esther laughed, nothing sweet in it now, just a cooing, scornful sound. “You made a deal with Mel? My dear boy, there’s quite enough precedent for you to know that’s a bad idea.”

“You know her.”

“Of course I do. Dark council and all that. I’m up against her for head of intelligence when the war begins.” She ran a finger under his chin and he let her for a moment before flinching away, small and exposed and furious at the brick wall and furious that in this moment he didn’t need it to hate her touch. She scrunched up her pretty upturned nose in amusement. “So now you can’t get your fix from him, you’ve got to find it somewhere else. What a perfect nightmare. What were you thinking, dear?”

He hadn’t been thinking anything. He’d just been hurting. 

“That’s rich, coming from you.” Crowley climbed to his feet, the intimacy that had been so urgently necessary just minutes ago suddenly stifling. He stood and paced, nowhere to go, nowhere he wanted to go. “She did this to me because I caught her on the wrong day. What do you think she’ll do to you if you take her job?”

“It sounds rather like you did this to yourself.”

“Oh, have fun with that attitude. You’re what, a duke? A prince? Just some upstart. I know how they feel about earthside demons down there. She’s going to destroy you.”

“My political capital is quite high right now. I delivered unto them the Antichrist.” Esther shrugged, but he caught the flicker of doubt, barely there and gone again. 

Crowley opened his mouth to spit poison, to tell her how she was going to fall again, illuminate for her, in excruciating detail, just how unsafe she really was. 

He caught himself before he did. What was he doing? Just reliving Aziraphale through her again, the horrid parts this time. Lashing out at her because she could hurt him like no one else could. He didn’t know if she could go toe-to-toe with Mel, and if she was anyone else he wouldn’t care. He was letting her get under his skin. 

He couldn’t do this forever, sink further and further into his wounds and his neuroses until there was nothing left of him. A bloody eternity of spitting and swatting like a scared cat. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just going to…” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Just give me a little bit.”

“Of course, dear.” Her face had gentled, a sorrowful smile resting on her lips. Because she wasn’t invested in this, didn’t have any reason to want to screw with him. She was just her own person, a demon, doing an unpleasant job the best she could. She gave him a short nod. “Mind how you go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elle Fitgerald's 'The Nearness of You' is lowkey the horniest song. 
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	10. with tresses shorn

It was the bell of the shop door that broke Aziraphale’s light doze, his body slipping in and out of sleep as time blurred at the edges. The chime startled him into awareness. He came back to himself overhot in the sunshine, tangled in blankets and stifled in the warm room, throat tight from ephemeral dreams that had visited him. Just snippets, feelings, red hair, long fingers, frozen, lonely nights and warm laughter and harsh words and tender kisses. 

Aziraphale dragged himself out of bed, groggy and sweat-soaked. There were only a handful of people who could unlock his shop and none of them warranted changing out of his pyjamas, so he went, trundling down the stairs, trying to shake the shade of sleep off without much success. 

Raphael was in his kitchenette, lighting the stove with the concentration of a creature who had never lit a stove before but had seen it done many times and was sure he had a handle on things. Red hair, long fingers, the same (not the same) (the same) from his dreams. 

“Good morning,” Aziraphale murmured, standing in the doorway.

The stove lit up with an obliging  _ whoosh _ and Raphael looked up, one hand settling the kettle over the flame. “Morning, Briar Rose, thought you might sleep right through our wild goose chase.”

“I’m sorry, you should have woken me.”

“Nah, means you needed it.” Raphael grabbed a little paper bag from the bench and tossed it to him. “Did you know you can catch a train to Paris? A  _ train _ . Only takes an hour and runs all night.”

“No it doesn’t.” 

Raphael gave an apologetic wince. “Did last night. That’s your prescription, take two and call me in the morning.”

Aziraphale fumbled the bag against his chest. He opened it up to find two chocolate croissants, still warm. He chuckled despite his stomach clenching in protest. All that food and wine yesterday had been a challenge, he wasn’t sure he could take Raphael feeding him up like a pâté goose. But the thought was as nice as the croissants, and just as warm. 

Aziraphale took a bite of the first croissant, and there was nothing quite like french pastry, but he found something hard in the bottom of the bag and pulled out a little paper-wrapped package. On unfolding it he found a keychain, a rubber guillotine. A little toy, cartoonish, with a grey blade that slid up and down by pull-tab. 

He raised an eyebrow at Raphael. 

“So the Bastille is back,” Raphael said, by way of explanation. “And it has the most tasteless giftshop.”

Aziraphale whimpered out a laugh around his food. He twisted the toy in one hand, chewing on his breakfast while Raphael made tea. The Bastille was back. It had been a rather grand building, to hold all the many political enemies of Louis… 14? 15? Probably standing long before that. He should keep track of that sort of thing, or look it up in a book, know his history better than he did. The only thing he remembered was flirting with Crowley in a prison cell, dancing about each other, little wiggles of hips and quirked eyebrows and lingering looks. He couldn’t remember who started the revolution. After thousands of years the violent oppressed blurred into each other, but he’d only been rescued from handcuffs the once. 

He’d been at the opening of the railway from London to Paris, it had been fitting, it felt like a monument future generations would talk about. Crowley had bought him hot chocolate, stood next to him with a newspaper tucked under one arm, made snide comments about project managers and logistical managers and managers in general while Aziraphale assured him that everyone was doing their best.

He turned the keychain over in his hand, and again. There was something to it. Something that lingered beyond the smell of new rubber and the warmth from the bag of pastries. A different kind of warmth. Probably the residue of Eve’s enormous miracle wishing it into existence, the same flashes of brightness that covered Tadfield end-to-end. 

“Did you find anything except tasteless souvenirs?” Aziraphale asked. 

Raphael sat two cups of tea on the table, drawing him in, sitting across from him at the kitchen table in the morning sunlight. “No, not really. She’s not hanging around for breakfast after her miracles, she’s searching for something and if it’s not there she’s moving on. Fast. By the time the news gets hold of it she’s long gone.”

“Have you spoken to Crowley and Esther?” Aziraphale’s stomach did a little flip flop at the thought, the demons had been alone together for more than a day now and he clamped down on the ideas that welled up inside him. What they might be getting up to. How they might be interacting with each other. He couldn’t think about that. He’d encouraged Crowley to go with Esther, he couldn’t resent that choice now. 

“Yeah.” The shadow of a scowl flitted over Raphael’s face, there then gone again. “Yeah they’re somewhere in Oxfordshire today but I suspect I know what they’ll find.”

“So what’s the plan, then?”

“We need to get ahead of her. We need, I need, to know where she's going. Keep eating, please.”

Aziraphale glanced at the croissant in his hand, realising he’d stopped eating after a single bite. It would be a shame to waste it, it was quite good. Nice with tea. Picked up just for him, from Paris. 

“How do you plan to do that?” Aziraphale asked, then obediently took another bite, determined to finish the whole thing. He ought to enjoy it. Once Raphael was gone there would be no more breakfast in the kitchen, no little gifts. 

Raphael sighed, his hand coming down on Aziraphale’s wrists with a squeeze. “I need you to tell me what she’s finding, where it’s taking her.”

_ Tell me about Crowley _ . The words were implicit. Their relationship was the thread that ran through Eve’s journey and the only way to follow that journey to its conclusion.

He thought of confession, that lovely, ugly, human thing.  _ Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I drank wine with the devil, I did his work, I kept his company, I loved him and made love with him. I betrayed his trust and left him alone.  _

“We’ve been everywhere,” Aziraphale said. “We’ve been on this planet, together, for six thousand years. She could find traces of us anywhere.”

“You said the Globe meant something special to you, what about the Bastille?”

_ “After you, Monsieur Fell,” Crowley guided him into the creperie, fond mockery in his words and smile and outstretched hand.  _ They’d eaten crepes and Aziraphale thought of untwisting those neatly pinned curls. He’d taken himself in hand that night for the first time, thinking of closing the last of the distance, dancing another step closer, Crowley’s hands on him. He’d been so embarrassed when his vision cleared, and weeks afterwards, the memory of what he’d done blindsiding him from time to time and making him blush scarlet. 

“It meant something.”

“What?”

Aziraphale thought about lying, claiming Crowley had saved him from the humans and an embarrassing discorporation, but that wasn’t really the case. It wasn’t the significance. Even Gabriel wouldn’t have minded him miracling himself free, that wasn’t the point. He’d set the scene, laid out the bait, it was the first time he’d really, intentionally  _ flirted _ . With Crowley and with the idea of taking things further. He’d only thought, at the time, that maybe the thing he was feeling was physical as well as platonic, that it might be nice to touch those curls. He hadn’t realised how deep he was in, a drowning man thinking that his socks felt a bit damp.

Lucky him, he got to touch as much as he liked now, Crowley spread out beneath him moaning in ecstasy at least once a week. 

A lock of Raphael’s hair curled artfully about his face, escaped from its tie. 

“It’s not at the Bastille,” Aziraphale said quietly. “What she’s looking for, it was never there.”

“I know this is hard for you, dove, but please try. I need to know.”

Aziraphale shrugged, helpless. “It started in Eden, we met on the walls. He tempted Eve, I armed Adam, and neither of us were ever recalled. We were there in Mesopotamia, Sumeria, Greece, Rome, Minoa, Xia China, and Shang, and Zhou and all the other ones. Six thousand years of everything that interested Heaven and Hell. How can I possibly sum it up?”

“What changed? When did you stop being rivals and start being lovers? Just… keep it broad strokes, don’t push yourself.”

“We were never rivals. And most of the time we weren’t lovers. We just coexisted cordially. We didn’t… it wasn’t until Adam that… No, I know what you need to hear. It was in 1020.”

Raphael blanched, something shocked and cold running its way through him, stiffening and straightening and rearranging himself in his chair. “1020? AD?”

“Does that mean something to you?” Aziraphale asked. 

Raphael nodded. “The year I came to Earth. Esther kept discorporating the lower orders of angels. I drew the short straw.” He drew in a contemplative breath before snapping himself back. “Were you in love with him then?”

“No. I don’t think so. I was fond of him. That was when…” Aziraphale’s throat tightened. Raphael had been so understanding of his relationship, but loving a demon might be framed as something ineffable, inevitable, outside his control. The Arrangement was treason against Heaven. A well thought-out plan to interfere with divine edict. 

He must have paused a moment too long, because Raphael’s hand was on his own again, squeezing gently. 

“Hey, it’s alright,” Raphael said. “Too early, anyway. She’s past that now. So you two were friends, and you met up, and then the Antichrist changed things. Tell me about that?”

He could skip right over 1941. Raphael wasn’t asking, had made a convenient assumption. But what was the point of doing any of this is he was keeping information back? “There was more. A church here in London, it was destroyed during the Blitz and rebuilt shortly after. She might… If she’s looking for… It was… He saved my-my…”

“He saved your life?”

“My books.” Aziraphale tried to swallow the lump in his throat but there was nothing for it, tears sprung to his eyes. “The books I’d spent s-s-so long collecting, they w-w-w-would have been blown to pieces. I d-d-didn’t even think of them but Crowley… Crowley…”

He had never loved anything like he loved Crowley that night. It was so easy and so hard. Everything snapping into place in a heartbeat. The favours and treats and indulgences came into new light. The excuses he told himself disintegrated. There was only one reason for Crowley to think of those books, to save them, to bring them back to him unharmed. Because it was real, all of it, every glance and laugh and brush of hands - he  _ cared _ . And Aziraphale cared, too. So much more than he thought he could. 

“Easy, you’re doing so well,” Raphael said, twisting their hands together, holding him tight. 

“And here, Soho, in the 60s. In the 60s. I th-thought I’d l-l-lose him. It was all here, after that, after… after… We were here when… when he called m-me and told me he had the Antichrist. He came here. And then the Dowlings and… and… Tadfield and then it was over. It was over. It’s over.”

It was over. 

Raphael held his hand with both of his own now, stroking the skin of his wrist, eyes burning bright gold. “What happened, Aziraphale? That was twenty years ago. Did you love him then?”

“He loved me. We loved each other,” Aziraphale said, his voice a pitiful whine, breath coming in hiccoughs. It was a plea, for Raphael to understand. It hadn’t always been this way, he hadn’t always been this way. Once he had been healthy, colourful and strong, Crowley had been warm, funny and kind. Their love had been beautiful. 

He’d never said it. Crowley had been brave enough but he had waited too long. A love like no other, built up brick by brick over thousands of years and they had never just looked at each other and confessed it. ‘I love you’ - ‘I love you, too’ - like lovers do. That was what he’d stolen from himself in his weakness. 

“What happened?” Raphael asked, leaning closer. 

“It was the flower show. M-M-Mephistopheles. She offered us a deal and we weren’t going to take it, we weren’t, I swear it by God…” Aziraphale crushed his eyes closed, willing the tears to stop, trying not to think about it, trying not to remember anymore than he had to. He heaved in a breath, trying to loosen his chest, squeezing Raphael’s fingers for strength. “Sandford. If she’s following our love to where it disappeared she’s going to Sandford. Crowley knows the house.”

Raphael let out a sound that was almost a laugh, wrapped in an hysterical, relieved sigh. He raised Aziraphale’s hand and pressed a kiss to his fingers, fierce and bright. “Thank you, dove. I owe you everything for this, do you know that? You’re saving me.”

In that moment Raphael was so earnest, grateful, adoring, that Aziraphale bit down against the tears again, chin trembling. He’d seen that expression so many times and ignored it and ignored it and now it was gone. He shook his head, unable to speak. He couldn’t accept Raphael’s gratitude when he’d done so poorly by Crowley, abused his love until he’d dealt with Hell again just to be rid of it. 

“Please don’t thank me. I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

“You bloody well have. Don’t tell me you haven’t. We’ve got a roadmap now, we’ll send the others to Sandford and I’ll hit the spots around Soho. You’re bringing my girl back to me.” 

“I don’t… I’m not very…”

Raphael let go of his hand and cupped his face in one huge palm, stunning the words out of him. No one touched his face. Not for six thousand years, with the exception of a few beautiful days. It was grounding and uplifting at once, his heart beating a complicated tattoo and his tears slowing their assault. God, was Crowley so tactile? Had he wanted to be? If there hadn’t been any barriers, any taboos, would this have been his life, thousands of years of gentle touch? 

Whatever Crowley was, Raphael was so free with how he touched, how he gave away his affection. He held Aziraphale there, so careful with him, and smiled. “You’re better than you think you are.”

Aziraphale’s hand fell to Raphael’s wrist, holding him there, closing his eyes to the touch, remembering what it meant to be treated kindly. He wanted to cry all over again. The sweetness that he’d once craved, that had set his heart pounding, now burned like iodine on an open wound. He wanted to shy away from it even as he trembled with gratitude.

“Thank you,” he breathed. 

Raphael let his hand drop, squeezed his hand one more time before letting go. “We’re going to talk more on this,” he warned. “When you’re ready. But for now, eat your croissants before I make you.”

Aziraphale let out a weak, surprised chuckle and looked down at his food. It sat, half-eaten beside a cooling cup of tea. He glanced at Raphael through his lashes, saw the stern, concerned look in his eyes, and tucked into his breakfast. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	11. downward by a path uncouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: some discussion of csa in this chapter but it's not heavy

Quarrendon was an empty field. Or the part that had existed a thousand years ago was an empty field. There were ancient rocks sticking up from dug-out trenches, the place surveyed and photographed and run over with those radar machines archaeologists liked to use. It had been wiped out during the black plague, Crowley thought. Or something around that time, that century at least. Or maybe the next. 

From hundreds of people to an empty field. From an empty field to a single, perfectly preserved pub. A wooden hut with a thatched roof in an empty field. No roads for him to drive the Bentley so he hiked through the grass, tried not to laugh at Esther hiking in her kitten heels. 

It looked just the same as it had back then, except for the blooming rose bushes that grew along the walls, like the owner had decided it needed a touch of class and soundly misjudged how to achieve it. 

It felt big. Not in the physical sense, in the other sense. Like he should look at it and get shot backwards a thousand years, recall the sights and sounds and undoubtedly colourful smells. Everything had been smelly back then. Crowley paused outside, taking it in, trying to decide what he should be feeling, trying to overlay the past with the present. 

But it wasn’t a madeleine moment. The nails were rough-forged and the left wall leaned slightly and a pigeon had started to build a nest in the thatching. It was just a building. 

Esther drifted in front of him, pushing through the door to look around and Crowley followed. It looked just the same. Wonky tables, dirt floor, a giant barrel in the corner. Same as you’d find in any small town in the 9th century, a poorly-slung-together place for farmers to get drunk and priests to rant about on Sunday morning. The owner had hung a strange sort of straw/feather woven arrangement on the wall, the tapestry of the lowest classes, to give it a bit of colour. Maybe his wife had made it, if he had one. Crowley couldn’t remember the humans, they were too long passed. 

“Am I not seeing something?” Esther asked, blinking about the room. 

“No.” Crowley circled the room. He couldn’t remember the place exactly but the little things reminded him why he hated certain times in history. The mold in the corners and the way the room sat so open that privacy was impossible, the beaten metal jugs and cups that sat heavy in his hands and made all the beer taste like iron. 

“So what happened here?” Esther pushed herself up on both hands to sit on one of the tables, crossing her legs primly and watching him as he wandered about. 

“Was only here once. Back in 1020. Hell sent me to tempt a guy.” He couldn’t remember the place but he remembered the man. A hawkish nose and a shaved head, young, strong, an overseer to one of the farms or something. Managerial type. Name was… something. Crowley could have picked him out of a lineup but drew a blank on the name. 

It had been luck or fate, or both. Sometimes Crowley thought God was playing with them, sometimes he knew it, and sometimes if he worked at something for five hundred straight years he was bound to catch a break eventually. It wasn’t very often that he and Aziraphale were asked to work on the same human, less often that Aziraphale was tired and overworked and getting fed up with his assignments. 

Crowley had tempted the man to steal a sack of gold coins, easiest temptation he’d done in years. He found out later that night, in this pub, with a frazzled angel sitting across from him that Aziraphale had been pulled from assignment in India, been made to travel the human way day and night for weeks to be here and bestow a blessing: a sack of gold coins fortuitously dropped in the man’s path. 

He hadn’t laughed, the angel had looked too pathetic to bear it. He’d pointed out, all sympathy, that these sorts of things could be avoided. That Aziraphale didn’t have to be here in this damp, drafty place, he could have set up shop somewhere cosy and let Crowley handle all this. Lundenburg was looking very civilised nowadays, he could still be there in a warm apartment with half decent wine and a feather bed. 

And that was the easiest temptation he’d done in days. Not even a temptation, Aziraphale sitting across from him with suspicious eyes, frowning and dithering and all but begging him to make it convincing. Tired and desperate for an excuse. 

Crowley tried, he  _ tried _ to feel some sliver of what he’d felt then. If he could just sketch out the shape of it in his mind, in his heart, he was sure he’d find what Eve was looking for. 

He sat at that table where he’d sat a thousand years ago. He could see Aziraphale there, if he really concentrated. His curls damp and mussed, mouth downturned, passing a tankard of hot beer hand to hand. He could see himself too, maybe, itchy from woolen clothing and hungry for company, taking advantage of the angel’s low spirits. 

Was that how it had happened? Aziraphale’s negligence and his own manipulative self-interest? Risking the worst tortures so he could skive off now and then? There had to be something else. He had to have seen something other than a vulnerable angel when he’d looked at Aziraphale. Hell would have had his hide for even thinking about dealing across the table, it had to have taken trust, and hope, hope for something so much bigger than a handshake deal. 

Esther hopped off the table and took up the seat across from him. 

It looked like some video aftereffect, a moving body slipping in to replace a paused frame. The flat image of Aziraphale sitting across from him was suddenly moving and breathing. She wasn’t ground down, wasn’t tired, not like she had been the last time Crowley had been here. She had, he had, Aziraphale and Esther both sat easy with the same energy, a quiet confidence, attentive, waiting for him, waiting to parse and parry. 

“Do you ever think about not doing what you’re told?” Crowley asked, testing the boundaries, testing the waters to see how deep they ran. 

“Isn’t that in the job description?” Esther asked. “We’re both here for defying God.”

“Myeah but… Satan, you ever think about not doing what he tells you?”

She laughed, shocked. “Don’t be absurd. I’m a demon, not an idiot.”

“But… but doesn’t that get to you?” Crowley found himself leaning forward, pressing his own point. “We damned ourselves because we couldn’t stand doing what the archangels told us and now… what, we just do whatever the princes say, instead? Trade one blind loyalty for another?”

“I’m afraid it’s the only kind of loyalty I have.”

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m a little funny,” Esther said with a bastard smirk so close to Azirpahale’s that Crowley felt a shock of disdain run through him. She pursed her lips. “But let’s indulge your hypothetical. What becomes of the humans without a demon to influence them? Do they all get a free ticket to Heaven?”

“We’ve both been on Earth six thousand years, you being the ruinous demon and me barely showing up for work, is your world so much worse than mine? What has six thousand years worth of evil gotten you?”

“Yes, well,” Esther sniffed, “Your adversary was equally apathetic, it seems.”

He was shifting her, just a bit, he could feel it. The table in front of him started to look more familiar, that empty space over her left shoulder where any human could eavesdrop, it had annoyed him at the time. Too open, the sound carried too well when he needed some atmosphere to sell his goods. 

“It doesn’t do anything. Humans do more evil than we ever could, you know that, right? You’ve seen it.”

“I have,” she conceded with a little stretch of her hand, lips drawing into a thoughtful pout. “Are you suggesting we hold no influence at all?”

“I’m  _ suggesting _ that the big picture doesn’t care much what we do. Souls go up and down, but that’s on them.” An anxious flutter made itself known in Crowley’s chest. He wanted her to agree with him. Not because he was right, or because it would save a few jerks at rest stops, but because it meant… it meant… 

He was calloused, he realised, the same not-quite-injury a thousand times over the same skin leaving it hard and cracked. Demons who wanted to give their orders and get out, presentations given to blank stares, the ever-present threat that maybe he wasn’t doing things quite right and someone scary would notice. He had sat here a thousand years ago and held out that cracked skin again, asking for understanding, a gentle touch, for someone to say they understood him. To look at him and see someone reasonable, intelligent, maybe even insightful. Aziraphale had dealt his share of blows over the years but they’d been half-hearted, a light slap to mask the way he wanted to touch. 

He’d reached out - do you understand? And Aziraphale had reached back - no,  _ no,  _ sort of, maybe, in a certain light, and finally  _ yes _ . Sitting across from him in this pub, beer passed from hand to hand.

Esther’s hands were clasped together. “Oh, my dear, it’s been difficult for you, hasn’t it?”

“It’s not difficult,” Crowley snapped, too sore for her false sympathies. 

“It is,” she insisted. “You’re right, the humans are evil in ways we can’t understand, but we have to bear witness. Sometimes it feels like we’re encouraging them,  _ making _ them do these dreadful things.”

“That’s not exactly…” He wanted to clench his hands, to clench them around hers, to force her to look at him, to hear him, to listen. 

“Do you know, when the world was still very young, I came across… Well, not a priest, there weren’t such things then, but his village thought of him as a wise man. A man of God. He liked to interfere with little boys.” A sadness, a seriousness swept over her. Something deep in still waters. “He was… I’m sure you can imagine. I was prosecution after he died, I thought it would be the easiest argument I ever made, but…”

“But he still had faith,” Crowley finished for her, watching her swallow thickly. He’d heard the story before, more times than he could count from demons frothing at the mouth in rage. 

“He still had faith. He thought it was a weakness of the mortal body. He flagellated and purged and said his primitive prayers. Apparently having a wank and keeping his hands to himself wasn’t an option. But it was pure faith, he put himself in Her hands and repented.”

Crowley closed his eyes but could still hear the way her hands fluttered against the table, could still see the afterimage of her grief. 

“His victims,” she continued, voice wobbling, “lost their faith, if you can imagine. And there were no trauma counsellors back then. They expressed themselves as survivors often do, without grace or tact, sometimes destructive, or self-destructive. Famine took them young.”

“So, what?” Crowley asked. “What would you have done differently?”

“That’s hardly the point, is it? Heaven is corrupt, Crowley, no matter if they’re in a lovely penthouse or a sulfur pit. They’ll never have a soul they don’t deserve if I can help it. And when the war is won I will find that man up in Heaven and make him regret ever touching those boys. Mark my words.”

So that was it, then. Refusal. Not Aziraphale’s play acting, his little coquette routine to confess he agreed without having to give up on his angel status. Real refusal. Do you understand? No, and I don’t want to.

Rewriting history to land him right here, alone in a way he’d never been.

“Yeah,” Crowley muttered. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

The light in the pub that day had been low, just enough to strike Aziraphale a paler shade of white, a little sunbeam that tried to find him even in the dreariest places. Esther sat in the shadow, glistening from within. 

“Your angel gave you a different answer, didn’t he?” 

“Yeah.”

“That’s why we’re here. You didn’t betray Hell for your Antichrist, you just betrayed them.”

Crowley thumbed at the crumbling edge of the table, wondered how close he was to Esther selling him out. She’d find a way. Hell didn’t take kindly to traitors. “Yeah, yeah I did. What of it? Going to drag me off to the pits?”

“Don’t be silly. Who else would help me find Eve?” She reached out, hand blindly groping for his and he let her find it, let her give his hand a squeeze where it lay flat on the table. Rewriting history. No invisible walls, no lipservice to enmity, no  _ get thee behind me _ . Nothing sitting between them but an empty table. 

And it wasn’t the same, but it was something.

“So she’s not here,” Crowley said. 

“No. But she found something here, didn’t she? That’s a good start.”

Crowley looked at the table, at Esther in her shadows, and realised he could feel the ache. Loneliness sitting heavy in his chest. Whatever Eve had ripped out of this place, it was missing from him too. Something clawed at him, wanting to push Esther, wanting to  _ make _ her understand him, but he knew that she wouldn’t.

His phone vibrated in his pocket for a second before his ringtone started, sharp and loud in the old wooden room. Esther startled with it, drawing back her hand. 

Crowley glanced at the screen before answering. He had, in a moment of morbid humour the night before, taken a selfie, drawn a curly moustache and a monocle on it and linked it to Raphael’s number. It had been funny for all of ten seconds. 

“What’ve you got?” he asked. 

_ “Morning to you, too,”  _ Raphael said.  _ “Got a bag of chocolate croissants and a train ticket. You? _ ”

“Wet feet and a headache. We’re out in Oxfordshire at a thousand-year-old pub.”

_ “Anything useful?” _

“Would have called you if there was.”

_ “Right. Well, lemme know what you turn up.” _

“Yes, sir,” Crowley tried to put as much bite into it as he could. 

_ “Aren’t you going to ask about your boyfriend?” _

Fuck. Well. So Aziraphale had spilled the beans. Terrific. That was sure to make this all very comfortable and amicable. “Do I need to? Has he been kidnapped? Run off to the moon? Taken ill with consumption?”

A frustrated little huff through the phone was satisfying to hear, Raphael’s grouchiness getting the better of him.  _ “No, but have you thought about feeding him now and then?” _

“What am I, his nanny? He can feed himself.”

_ “He’s not well, Crowley.” _

Crowley scoffed. Aziraphale sure had pulled a number on Raphael. “Leave off. He’s a big boy, he doesn’t need you babying him.”

A long moment of silence echoed in his ear.  _ “Right. Let me know if you find anything.” _

“I’ll call, we’ll do lunch. Ciao.”

Crowley thumped the end call button as firmly as he could. He could only imagine what kind of drama those two were enacting back at the bookshop. This, this was exactly what he didn’t want. Aziraphale had been on a bad path for a while and if Raphael had started playing the enabler it was only going to get worse. The angel would never pick himself up with an archangel convincing him he couldn’t even feed himself. 

Esther was peering at him curiously, squinting as if she might better make out his expression. Crowley sighed and stood up, offering her his hand as he did. She took it and he drew her to her feet. 

It just kept getting worse. Quarrendon was gone, just a wooden shack in an empty field, just a memory of needing someone. The whole thing had been stripped for metaphysical parts, Mel and Eve digging in deep and dragging off anything that meant something. Aziraphale had been a kindred spirit, maybe his only kindred spirit, and now Crowley could only feel like Aziraphale had got it wrong. He’d been silly to ever agree to the Arrangement, weak to give in to Crowley’s temptation. Whatever he’d felt back then was all gone now. 

“Let’s get going,” Crowley said. “The humans should have something else for us.”

He led the way out, helping Esther across the damp field, dropping a miracle on her shoes to keep them clean, and left Quarrendon behind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	12. with the head and with the breast

It was strange having someone else in his shop. Crowley had dropped in and out since it opened but it was often decades between visits, and customers were shooed out as quickly as possible. Aziraphale had never had a _guest_. 

Raphael was a pleasant enough guest, Aziraphale imagined, having no point of comparison. He didn’t eat or sleep, there was no danger of him eating all the biscuits or using the wrong toothbrush or any of the other annoyances humans spoke about. He’d learned to make tea just the way Aziraphale liked it and didn’t make any snide comments about his more human habits. 

After only a few days it almost felt like a routine. Aziraphale would give Raphael an address somewhere in the city, Raphael would invariably make him a cup of tea, insist he choose a good book and leave him tucked under a blanket on the couch while he went and investigated, then some hours later he would return and report he found either nothing or a flourishing new rose garden. 

He’d taken to… Well. On Friday evening, just before he’d left to investigate a french restaurant on the Thames, he’d set down the cup of tea, tucked Aziraphale’s blankets in tighter, said his goodbyes and kissed Aziraphale’s forehead before disappearing out the door. 

And Aziraphale tried not to think about it. He knew overanalysing would do him no good, he’d just wind himself up in knots, drag himself round in circles. But the words in front of his eyes bled together and the tea grew cold on his lamp table and what did it _mean?_

Raphael had been ever so gentle with him, so gentle that it was almost overbearing, it wasn’t as if he was an invalid. He kept insisting that Aziraphale needed to take better care of himself, kept helping in that effort, and Aziraphale accepted that he was the original physician, his nature and instincts were what they were. But what doctor kissed their patient’s face?

Was it an instinct, given no more thought than the hand-pats and shoulder squeezes? Did he do that to Esther or maybe Eve and hadn’t broken the habit? Was it… was it some sort of overture? Had Aziraphale simply been in this limbo so long he had forgotten what friendliness looked like?

He didn’t read a word that night, caught between anxiety and a blush of warmth. He startled terribly when Raphael returned and realised, when he brushed past into the kitchen, that he wanted the archangel to do it again. 

And he felt so, horribly, dreadfully guilty at how much he enjoyed it when on Saturday, he did. 

Aziraphale so stuck in his own head that time seemed to skip and jump around him, that his fingers wore anxiety spots in the upholstery, that bottles of wine disappeared when he didn’t realise he was drinking them and the wine made it both better and worse. He couldn’t be having _feelings_ for Raphael. He would be gone so soon, back to his own world. And there was the other thing. He had overreached saying that he was _with_ Crowley. Humans tended to assume they were a traditional monogamous couple and it had been easier in the moment to simply agree to the assessment. They sometimes indulged in sexual affairs with each other but that wasn’t the same as being a couple. Aziraphale had no other lovers but he’d never asked Crowley if he had, and he didn’t know what answer he’d get or which one he’d want to get. It all added up to a very unpleasant question: did he need to involve the word _infidelity_ in all this? He was being presumptuous to even think Crowley would care. He was arrogant to think that it might apply to his relationship with Raphael.

No, Crowley wouldn’t care if he was feeling something for someone else and it didn’t matter anyway because Raphael was only being kind. 

Nonetheless, the word rattled around in his brain and his heart when Raphael’s lips pressed against his forehead for the second time and something inside him ignited. 

“Be back soon,” Raphael said, already halfway out the door and Aziraphale watched him, lips parted, biting down on a pathetic plea for him to stay. If he stayed he might hold his hand again, or just sit with him. Maybe once Eve was found she might decide not to leave right away. 

Aziraphale stayed silent. 

When he came downstairs on Sunday he found a sight that alarmed him, because Raphael dressed as an archangel was intimidating, and Raphael in finely tailored clothes was devastating. He was in pale grey still, a gold tie clip on a washed out orange tie. He didn’t look at Aziraphale right away, busy straightening his collar in the mirror. 

“What’s the occasion?” Aziraphale asked quietly. 

Raphael turned to him with such a smile it made his stomach clench. “It’s Sunday.”

Aziraphale stared blankly for a moment before the implication settled in. “Oh! You go to human church.”

Raphael laughed, his eyes crinkling so pleasantly. “Hah! I’m sorry, is that too human for you, Mr. Tea and Scones?”

“No, of course, how silly of me.”

“Don’t be like that. Come with me. Are you up to it?”

Aziraphale huffed. “Of course I am. Honestly the way you talk anyone would think I’m bedbound. I don’t…” He looked down at himself, suddenly aware of how badly his clothes were fitting. “I don’t have anything to wear.”

Raphael left the mirror and approached him, slinking closer. “Maybe you could make an exception about conjuring up clothing? This once? Come on, I want you with me.”

The words sparked at that flint that lived inside him. Raphael wanted to be around him, wanted to share something with him. It wouldn’t be the same, he’d always had his clothing made by humans ever since they started wearing clothing, but the idea of going somewhere with Raphael, looking nice and put together, was… well it was tempting. 

With a snap of his fingers Aziraphale was dressed. He didn’t think about it first, had no mental wardrobe to draw from. He looked down to find that his outfit had none of the warm sentimentality of ancient waistcoats or camel hair, but it was fine. A warm woolen waistcoat, nicely tailored trousers, a coat that might have come from a mannequin at Harrods. He took up Raphael’s place in front of the mirror. 

Without thinking of it he’d made himself a tartan bowtie. He tugged it off.

“You should keep it,” Raphael said. “It looks good.”

“Crowley doesn’t -” Aziraphale cut himself off. _Crowley doesn’t like tartan._ It wasn’t even true. Crowley never said anything about it, he just looked away, politely stifling a cringe whenever Aziraphale was too twee, too idiosyncratic. It embarrassed him and by association embarrassed them both. Aziraphale was allowed to wear whatever he wanted, he would have even if Crowley had been critical, but it made life a little easier to let go of the little things. Less tartan made for nicer outings. 

“Crowley isn’t here.” Then Raphael was in his space, hands sliding over his lapels and twisting around the undone tie. Aziraphale thought for a moment that he might lean in closer, kiss his cheeks or slide those lovely hands into his hair. He didn’t. But the way he quickly, sharply retied the bowtie was as intimate. 

Raphael straightened Aziraphale’s tie, smoothed down his lapels, then there was a comb in his hand and he fussed with Aziraphale’s curls. It didn’t feel like any victory of the self, his little act of defiance. Because it was defiant, it had become an issue and now whether he wore the tie or didn’t wear the tie, it was only to spite or placate Crowley. There was no fondness or pride for his new possession. But it kept Raphael close and that was perhaps worth it. 

When his hair was apparently satisfactory Raphael stepped back with a soft smile. “There, now.”

Aziraphale looked in the mirror and a little spark of pride ran through him. They looked proper, like they fit. He rolled back his shoulders, seeing how they sat hunched, and stood up straight next to Raphael. He hardly recognised himself like this, well-groomed and well-dressed, ready to go out. Hardly recognised his own smile. 

“Come on, handsome, let’s get on,” Raphael dragged his attention away from the mirror, holding the door open for him. 

“Perhaps we could go to the church where… Knock out two birds with one stone, as it were?” Aziraphale suggested. 

“No,” Raphael said too sharply, too quickly. When Aziraphale turned a surprised eye on him he cleared his throat, looked away, softening again. “No, I mean, that’s not what today’s about, is it? I’ve a place in mind.”

Aziraphale let it go. He suspected that Raphael was taking his outings alone as a sort of buffer for their difficult work, keeping Aziraphale from the more painful reminders of his past. It was a little overprotective, but a little sweet as well. 

Raphael took him to a church not far away. Aziraphale had visited on occasion, for a few blessings and some professional curiosity, and he knew the people to be mostly decent and mostly devout. He hadn’t been much for interacting with people lately. Dealing with humans was so often frustrating and tiring that he had stopped bothering. But it was alright to be just sort of in their proximity, grasping the same paper booklet of hymns, listening to the same sermon. 

It was all quite lovely. A bit misguided, here and there, but very heartfelt. The minister fairly skipped the particulars of the Bible and encouraged the congregation to work on their personal relationship with God, and that seemed nice. There was some off key singing which raised his spirits as well. 

Raphael looked so at home, and so handsome, standing and kneeling and singing badly, smoothing out his hymn book during the slower parts. The good Christian man if any of them were. Aziraphale amused himself imagining how many middle-aged women were scanning his hands for a wedding ring and feeling a little surge of hope when they found none. 

He could do this, he thought. Leaving his shop for a social outing, much less a spiritual one, had seemed like a mountain to climb for so long now. Something he forced himself into for the sake of Crowley’s company and never otherwise. Somewhere along the way he’d stopped feeling like a part of the world and started shying away from it. He used to like humans. Dancing with them, performing magic for them, just being around them. It was liberating to feel not just capable of being out, but good about it. 

The minister ended the service with a reminder. “If anyone has any donations for the homeless shelter please see Anita. God bless, everyone.”

Raphael turned to Aziraphale, one eyebrow quirked mischievously. “Are they still keeping track of your miracles upstairs?”

Aziraphale shook his head, twisting his hands. “No.”

“Let’s go see Anita then, shall we?”

Anita was a portly woman in her sixties who appeared to have bought her blouse in her high school years and liked it so much she’d kept it. They found her taking boxes of canned goods from the other congregants who milled about after the service. 

Aziraphale had expected Raphael to approach her but he hung back, offering an encouraging nod and letting Aziraphale take the lead. He hesitated, not sure what to say, what to do, it had been so long since he’d talked to humans. 

He took a breath and chastised himself for being ridiculous. He was a timeless ethereal entity with the power to cast miracles, he couldn’t get a case of nerves from talking to an aging usher about a charity drive. 

“Um, hello,” he said, trying for a smile. “You’re Anita, I take it?”

“I surely am, how can I help?” she said, so much more easily, more casually than him. She must talk to dozens of people every day. 

A hundred years ago he might have stopped to chat for hours, to find out her story, the church’s history, what fascinating little things lived in this one human and no other. But the words didn’t come easily, his tongue didn’t run smoothly like it used to, the words he needed did not obligingly appear as he needed them. So instead he held out a cheque, his hand only trembling slightly. He didn’t think of a number to put on it, just enough to let them do what they needed to do.

“For the homeless shelter,” he said. 

“Well, thank you, sir, this is very...” She looked at the cheque and her eyes widened, words petering out mid-sentence. “Very generous. I should get the minister, a donation this size is, well, it’s not usual, I should…” 

“Oh, no, please,” Aziraphale insisted. “I’d prefer to avoid any ballyhoo. Just see that it makes it to the right hands.”

Anita stared at him with something like reverence and gave a nod. “I will, sir. You’ve helped a lot of people today, God bless.”

“It’s really… it’s… it’s nothing.”

“I haven’t seen you around before, are you new to the area?”

“Oh! Oh, no, I suppose I’ve let my attendance lapse.” Aziraphale twisted his hands, trying to find a way out of the conversation. 

“Well I hope we see more of you.”

“I… yes, you might. You might, at that.”

“All done, dove?” Raphael leaned in, as if on cue. He had been watching, Aziraphale realised, and had seen him flag. 

“Yes. Thank you, Anita. Have a pleasant day.”

Raphael set a hand in the small of his back and Aziraphale completely missed whatever Anita said in farewell. It wasn’t a casual touch, it was possessive, protective. He was running low on energy and courage and then all of a sudden Raphael was holding him up, tucked against his side and leading him out into the sunshine. 

Raphael held him there, on the footpath, half a hug that centred and grounded him, let him call on the last of his energy. Aziraphale took a moment, breathed, and processed what he’d just done, and how he felt about it. 

“Not so bad, was it?” Raphael asked with a smile, brushing a curl from his forehead. 

Aziraphale wanted to fling himself into Raphael’s arms, bury his face in his chest and just soak up all the warmth and the light he brought. The touches, the kisses, taking care of him like this. It was a different kind of pain, a starving man being fed a meal in tiny chunks, the wait between each morsel an eternity when all he wanted to do was gorge himself. 

“Not bad at all. I rather enjoyed myself.”

“Do you think you can get back to the shop by yourself? I was going to see that old club while I’m out.”

Aziraphale chuckled. “Are you going to get me a walking frame next?”

“Yeah, alright, big strong angel. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Raphael kissed his forehead and he swayed forward, stumbling as Raphael pulled away, all the lovely feelings of being pressed up against him slipping away as well. 

Aziraphale looked around him as he walked the few blocks back to his shop, trying to really look at the people on the streets. He’d been protector to these people for centuries and somewhere along the way he’d forgotten. New shops had popped up, fashions had moved on, the little children of decades ago were now the adults who ran the neighbourhood. It all just kept going, with or without him, and he was beginning to appreciate that he had a preference in the matter. 

The paint on his shop was peeling a bit more than he’d thought, it was due for some maintenance. Like his clothes and his tea, he preferred to have it done the human way. Maybe he’d call someone once this was all over. 

He was so caught up in the paintwork that he didn’t notice his shop wasn’t empty until the door closed behind him. Didn’t realise anything was amiss until he had a doberman sniffing at his shoes. 

Aziraphale froze. It was a rather large dog, a pointy dog, with bright eyes and a cute little whine in its throat. The gears in his head turned and he looked up to the woman standing in the middle of his library, turning as she looked around, soaking everything in. 

Eve wasn’t like Adam. She didn’t have her father’s heavenly (hellish) beauty, the perfect jawline and the perfect curls, the porcelain skin and sparkling white teeth. She had the same mishmash of features most humans were born with - a soft chin, a strong, straight nose, a smattering of freckles. Her hair was a thick mane of strawberry blonde piled haphazardly on her head, done up with jewelled pins that he could imagine Esther pushing lovingly into her hair. 

Aziraphale had seen many creatures wearing human bodies over the millenia, but Eve looked so, so human. Human incarnate. 

“I’m afraid we don’t allow dogs in the shop,” he said, his voice coming out a whisper, the first thing he could think of to say. 

“Yes you do,” Eve said, not looking at him. She clutched in one hand a notebook covered in blue and black glitter, a tawdry dollar-store thing meant to resemble the night sky. 

Aziraphale decided she was quite right, he did allow dogs, and so tried again. “Raphael and Esther are looking for you.”

She looked at him, eyes piercing, seeing right through him, pinning him to the spot. She stared at him like she was stripping off layers of paint with her eyes, looking at him and Esther and all their secrets all at once. She took him in, head to toe, eyes darting along the line of him, no doubt doing the same cataloguing they’d all done on meeting each other. He was not her godmother, and he didn’t know exactly how much she’d taken that to heart. 

After her long, scrutinising glance she pursed her lips. “I’m not done here. I haven’t found it yet.”

“My dear girl, I’m not sure you’ll ever find it.” It was down in Hell with Mephistopheles, or up in Heaven with Samael. He knew, because if it was anywhere on Earth he would have found it himself by now. 

“It was here,” Eve said, scowling like thunder, whipping around as if that treasure was hiding in some book-filled nook or secreted away under a table. “Part of it, at least. _Show me_.”

The last words hit Aziraphale like a physical blow, sending him slamming back into the door with a painful crack. He blinked, trying to clear his eyes, and when they focused again the shop was empty. 

It wasn’t just empty of Eve. Centuries of collection were gone, the haphazard stacks of books, the furniture he’d picked up here and there, the art, the pictures on his walls. There were still bookshelves, and some books, but two centuries of work had vanished, bringing him back to the day… the day…

Aziraphale turned to look out the window. The streets were bare, no cars, no people, and all the shop-fronts had slipped back in time. A single figure sauntered down the street, a slip of black in a well-cut coat and a top hat, a box of chocolates tucked under his arm and a bunch of flowers in one hand. 

1800\. The day he had opened his shop. Crowley had come to congratulate him but Gabriel had shown up first, threatening to take him back to Heaven. There was no Gabriel now, just he and Crowley in a deserted world. 

Crowley’s footsteps echoed in the dead street, the tune he was whistling carried on the breeze. He didn’t seem to notice that everyone else had gone. 

How did he look so _young?_ Their bodies didn’t age and their clothes were ever changing. Two hundred years was the blink of an eye for them. But he looked young. Carefree with his lazy smile and lazier swagger. 

It was _his_ Crowley. Not golden Raphael and not the ghost he’d been living with but _his Crowley._ And it always hit him the same, seeing him again after decades away, wondering if it would be the same.

Oh, oh, God why was she doing this to him? Wasn’t Raphael enough? Did he have to run through every iteration of his lost lover to prove some monstrous point? He knew, he knew, he already knew. He didn’t need to see Crowley’s smile again to know, he didn’t need to see him brandish the bunch of flowers and box of chocolates to know he’d never bring them again. 

“Aziraphale!” Crowley greeted, hip-checking the door open and breezing past him into the shop. “Look at you, now, a respectable businessman. Thought I’d come by, offer my congratulations.”

Aziraphale tried to swallow around the knot in his throat, willed his eyes not to sting, but it was no use. He couldn’t move except the treacherous tremble of his bottom lip. Wasn’t his body tired of this by now? Wasn’t he tired of himself by now? 

With a flick of Crowley’s wrist his gifts sat on the coffee table by the counter, the flowers artfully arranged in a vase and the chocolate spilling out onto a porcelain plate. He spun around just as Eve had only a minute ago, inspecting his surroundings. 

“Very nice. Very _you._ Thinking of giving up your day job, then?” Crowley asked. 

He was so beautiful. He always was, always had been, a fluid being of sharpness and softness and brightness and darkness. Something to be admired, loved, understood. The constant jabs from all sides had made Aziraphale forget just how much he loved this creature. Even in the smallest moments, for the smallest things. He loved Crowley, loved him all over. Another six thousand years wouldn’t be enough to love all the pieces of him the way Aziraphale loved them. 

Aziraphale tried to speak, he really did. He ought to say something witty, or defensive. He could retrace their old steps, he knew he could, if he could just speak. Instead a thready whimper escaped his lips and his nose sniffled without his permission. 

Crowley whipped around. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” Aziraphale managed before his throat closed over again. He shut his eyes, feeling the tears slip down his cheeks. 

Crowley’s hands were on his shoulders and without thinking he surged forward, crushing the other to him tightly, burying his face in his shoulder. Crowley stiffened in surprise for the barest second, then he was hugging Aziraphale back, dragging him in, cradling him safe against the warmth of his body. 

“What’s happened?” Crowley whispered urgently. Because he didn’t know. “Is it Heaven? Did they find out?”

Aziraphale let out a sob, trying and failing to pull himself back together. He shook his head, trying to swallow down the tears but it only made him cry more, because Crowley didn’t know, he didn’t know Aziraphale loved him and he didn’t know Aziraphale had failed him and he was still holding him so tightly. 

“I love you,” Aziraphale confessed, still smothering his face in soft black wool. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, I’m sorry I didn’t realise.”

“You what?” Crowley said, the words sharp and cautious and hopeful. 

“I love you,” Aziraphale said again. He should say it, repeat it, breathe it into his skin, make a litany of it. 

“And that’s what’s got you so worked up?” The words were full of fond amusement, murmured into his hair, punctuated with a tight squeeze around him. He could feel Crowley’s smile against his hairline. 

It would have been funny, Aziraphale supposed, two hundred and forty years ago, if he had worked himself into such a lather that he was in tears only to confess something so obvious, so welcome. He wanted to stay here, before everything, knowing what he knew now. He wanted to stay with this Crowley who was still whole, who smiled when he confessed his love. He wanted to stay in this embrace forever. 

Aziraphale felt it fading and a stab of panic hit him. It was going. It was only an illusion. A pantomime for Eve’s pleasure. 

He cried as it left him, Crowley’s arms disappearing, the chest that sheltered him becoming less and less solid until it was only mist, then nothing at all, and Aziraphale was left standing alone in his bookshop. The bright past replaced with the grey future. 

The change didn’t register at first, Aziraphale looking around through burning, swollen eyes at his books back in their rightful place, each table and desk sporting a vase of roses in red and white and pink. When the real difference hit him he slumped back against the wall, simply too tired to react. 

It was love, bursting and blooming in the air, blanketing the shop like fireworks in a night sky, wave after wave of it. Not just any love, his own, and Crowley’s too. The texture of it was as distinct as a particular vintage of wine or flavour of cake. Everything they’d felt for each other, not just in 1800 but always. It was all etched into the very air around him, marking his home like lambs blood. 

Aziraphale crushed his eyes closed, pressed a hand to his face. He wanted to go back to bed, drink three bottles of wine and cry until he was too exhausted to keep his eyes open. It seemed like the closest thing to a solution when there was no solution, no way out, no possible happy ending. Instead he pushed himself standing. 

If he couldn’t be sad then he could be _angry._

He could be furious at Eve for exposing him to that, he thought as he grabbed the first bunch of roses and tossed them out on the street. 

He could be mad at himself for orchestrating this self-created hell in the first place, he thought as he grabbed more roses, and more, slicing his hands open on the thorns in his heavy-handed mission to get them out the door.

And, he thought, standing in the love bomb Eve had set off in his shop, feeling the waves batter him again and again, he could be livid with Raphael. Because he had most certainly found something at all those sites he’d visited. Raphael had been lying to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come to to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	13. circling round the filthy fen

Crowley sat on Mel’s couch, the light turned off, alone in the silent room. It was just like he’d seen it last - dingy, cheap and mismatched. The dog was gone, the demon was gone, a _for sale_ sign looked like it had sat in the front yard since the day he’d last been here. 

And he should have… _felt_ something. Some force strained at his ribs, behind his eyes, trying to make itself known, trying to be a real emotion instead of this weird, crushing sensation that he should be feeling something. This was where it all went wrong, or right, he wasn’t sure he knew the difference. It was just a room, just a couch, just a coffee table. 

He’d sat on this couch and been bone-deep certain that Aziraphale was the only thing he couldn’t live without. That was supposed to mean something. Pangs of guilt shot through him when he looked around and didn’t see any of it. It was just a less-than-pleasant place they’d been ordered to wait in until Eve showed up. And the memory of that night wasn’t anything compared to the very real, very immediate slam of his heart around his ribs whenever he heard Esther stir in the other room.

She was teasing him. 

She’d been teasing him from the start but since the little thigh-hickey incident she’d upped her game, especially at night, when there was nothing around to distract them. Twelve hours of finding himself suddenly with a nose full of feathers, floating across the room after her like a cartoon character, or pressed for his opinion on which perfume Esther should be dabbing on the column of her neck, or fighting the implied offer to suck juice-soaked fingers into his mouth. 

Him, a frisky dove, and a weeklong roadtrip could have been a post-watershed romcom come alive. Lucky him. He might have picked a prettier setting or a less vicious partner. 

She loved to drape herself invitingly across furniture and murmur love songs and reel him in, but it was only for the pleasure of pushing him away again with a smirk and a demand. He had spent the better part of his life learning what an angel might like, he’d forgotten what could make a demon run hot. 

It was unnatural to him. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He could wince all he liked looking back on the past but he had to admit the angel had given him an outlet he’d needed, with the gifts and the favours, the chance to be demonstrative. 

Esther was… well, she was infernal. The loveliness, the softness, it was a honey trap and he knew it. Trying to win her attention with romance was like trying to soothe Beelzebub with a fruit basket. Aziraphale would take whatever he was given and give it back in turn, alchemising one subtle affection into another. Esther would never dance into his arms. If you wanted something in Hell, you took it or did without. 

So there he sat, in an archdemon’s defunct lounge room, free from hell for twenty years and now trying to remember how to brush off the old skills. He didn’t want to go back there, not even in his own head. But nowadays his life was just a long list of things he didn’t want. He could wax lyrical about how boring, pointless, awkward and uncomfortable was every _blasted_ thing he came across. Didn’t want to watch that movie, didn’t want to drive that car, didn’t want to read that book, change his look, water his plants. 

He wanted Esther. That shouldn’t have meant so much to him, but it did. Seeing just one thing he wanted was enough to trump everything he didn’t want. 

Crowley looked at his hands, his boney knuckles standing out in the moonlight, hands that hadn’t changed for six thousand years. 

If he was a good person, a _nice_ person, he’d hold out a bit longer. If he was a good demon he wouldn’t have hesitated so long. 

It would hurt Aziraphale. He hurt him, he knew it, all the time, just by existing but also by everything else. He didn’t mean to, he’d never wanted to, just one thing done because he was hurting and now he couldn’t seem to stop it. They didn’t have a commitment to each other, they’d never named it, but he _knew._ There was something different about knowing beforehand and deciding to do it anyway. 

Crowley let the helplessness swell up in his chest, here in the dark. Part of him felt that dark, righteous anger Esther talked about, part of him wanted to scream at the sky and the ground and demand answers, demand justice. Had this been God’s plan all along? Her only use for him was the patsy to her favourite angel, to dote on him and follow where he led, and without that he had no purpose. In getting his freedom he’d run out his usefulness. And that idea was so unfair it made his throat close over. 

He was _allowed._ That was the whole point. There was no one keeping score anymore, he only had himself and whatever happiness or misery he could create with his own two hands. If he had been put on this earth just to please Aziraphale then fuck God for doing that to them. He wasn’t going to spend the rest of eternity trying to win a game he’d already forfeited. 

On a wave of self-righteous bitterness he stood up, let his feet take him to the bedroom door, let his hands open it. 

Esther sat in the little armchair in the corner of the room, guitar propped against the wall beside her as she braided her hair. She was comfortable in Mel’s space, took some kind of enjoyment in invading her rival’s territory. She straightened when he walked in, eyes vacant, acknowledging him without seeing him. 

“I know how you can beat Mel,” he said. Because this wasn’t about romance. 

Esther’s face crinkled in an amused smile. “My goodness, that’s quite the proposition.”

“I’m serious. She’s got a secret. You can blackmail her, or humiliate her, whatever you want. You’ll get your posting.”

“And you’re going to tell me out of the goodness of your heart?”

“No.”

Esther let her hair drop, clasped her hands in her lap. “Is this going to get a bit naughty, dear?”

Crowley had let momentum carry him this far, but the self-talk that had fueled his grand entrance was sounding quite a bit weaker in the bedroom. He couldn’t bribe her into sex. Or, well, he could, but the idea of having her on the back foot wasn’t fun. He didn’t want her scared, or humiliated, or uncomfortable. Now he had the space of a short pause to decide what he did want. 

He had one shot, and he was halfway through shooting it. He wouldn’t get a second chance, maybe not before the sun burned out. He had to decide what he wanted. 

“No,” he said. “Not really.”

“Then what?” She stood up, shaking her hair loose from its braid and taking a silky step toward him. “I’m yours to command, my dear.”

Crowley realised all of a sudden just how not in control of this situation he was. His cheeks burned pink and his hands shook, he could only look at her because he knew she couldn’t see him looking at her. She was beautiful and his to command and he didn’t want to do this.

He wanted her to fall into his arms. He wanted her to look up at him through adoring eyes, smile like sunshine and tell him anything good. That she liked him, that she liked the things he did and liked being around him. He wanted to be able to just say that out loud, he wanted to be vulnerable and not be judged or hounded or threatened for it. And he couldn’t bribe her into any of that. 

So, with the point of no return somewhere far, far behind him, he decided to take the next best thing. 

“Take a shower. The human way.”

Esther blinked. He’d managed to surprise her, at least. “I take it you’ve something in mind after that.”

“Mm, yeah, but shower first. And use these.” He pulled a miracle out of the air, and with it, the shampoo, soap and hand cream straight from Aziraphale’s bathroom. What was the point of pretending at this stage?

She took the bottles out of his hand with a playful smirk, like it was a big game, and to her it was. She blew past him on a wave of rosie perfume, the chipboard door to the bathroom clicking shut behind her, leaving him alone to consider what an actual, complete idiot he was. 

Every click of a bottle cap or squeak of a bare foot against tile echoed in Crowley’s head. He was an idiot. This wasn’t going to help, it wasn’t, it wasn’t but fucking hell did he want it. No matter how he argued it in his head he ended up in the same place: he wanted her exactly as much as he hated this, and there was no breaking the stalemate.

She spent just long enough in the bathroom to give him time to reconsider every one of his life choices. They were all bad, he decided, starting from Eden and ending right here, where he was doing whatever the hell this was with a sexy demon dove showering in the next room. 

By the time the water shut off the tremble in his hands had migrated to his shoulders and he sat down on the edge of the bed, head in his hands just to brace himself. The hairdryer was next, blowing too loud, vibrating on the exact frequency of the white noise in his brain. 

He was still holding his head in his hands when the door creaked open again. He saw pale pink toes in the carpet, just in his field of vision. Pink toes with flat, painted nails. He should have told her to take off the polish. 

“Step one accomplished,” she said. Then there were soft fingers on his chin, tracing his jawline, encouraging him to look up at her. He let her guide him for a second, taking in the fluffy towel wrapped around her, the way her hair frizzed and fluffed without anything slicking it into perfect curls. She traced a thumb over his lower lip, anticipating his desires all wrong. He caught her by the wrist. 

“No, not that.” He raised his free hand and snapped shaking fingers. Her towel was replaced with flannel pyjamas, and so were his clothes. 

Esther looked down at herself, mapped out the edges of the clothing with one hand, and started giggling. Crowley’s face burned but he kept his hand tight around her wrist. He could think it was funny, too. He didn’t have to be bitter and defensive about everything. 

It was… nice? It was nice. He had Esther here, hair frizzed out and in comfy pyjamas, giggling helplessly. He was comfortable and warm, the object of his affection standing between his knees, their hands touching, and somehow they were laughing together. 

Esther sighed, still grinning. “I don’t know what kind of pervert you are but I’m fascinated to find out.”

“Come here.” With a tug of her hand she was in his lap, thick thighs resting on his legs and his scrawny arm around her ample waist. That was very, very nice. He fished around in the ether for the last touch, and she obligingly tilted her chin so he could dab the right cologne on her neck. She nuzzled into his hand obligingly, biting her lip. 

Crowley stroked her cheek, watching the skin on skin, the way she leaned into him, then leaned forward himself and buried his nose in the skin of her neck, just under her ear. A shudder of pleasure worked its way through his body, she smelled so good. Not perfect, but so close it was sharing a post code. 

Esther held still for him, steadying herself with an arm around his shoulders, and let him breathe her in. His eyes slipped closed, his body tight and hands dug into the flannel of her pyjamas. Holding, breathing. 

“In the bed,” he said through a dry mouth. 

She complied with a little wiggle of delight, slipping under the coarse woolen covers. The bed creaked as she settled in and Crowley slid in behind her, holding her facing away from him, not letting her turn over. 

Their bodies fit together like a puzzle, his nose finding the back of her neck, his knees finding her knees and his arms tight around her waist. She felt so good it was dizzying. Warm, soft and fluffy. Melting into him. Crowley closed his eyes, let his lips part, let the shudders run through him. 

“Stay until I’ve fallen asleep?” He’d meant it as an order, as part of their game, but it slipped out as a helpless question.

“Of course, dear,” Esther murmured with a gentleness he didn’t expect. She pitied him. That was fine, he could handle pity if this was the reward. 

They stayed like that, silent, breathing together, and Crowley didn’t know how he was going to patch himself up in the morning. It was worth it, he had to believe it was worth it, because the alternative didn’t bear thinking about. If everything was going to be shit going forward, at least he had this. He could think about it, remember it and enjoy the memory, something Mel had never touched. It didn’t matter if it was a trade, he owed Esther more than he could repay for this. 

“She’s having an affair,” Crowley said into the nape of Esther’s neck. 

Esther tensed. “With whom?”

“Samael. They’ve been colluding since the beginning.”

He felt the delicate gasp in her ribs. She shifted, her arse pressing against him so very nicely. He sunk into her further, breathing deeper. His shoulders relaxed more and more with each breath, his whole world narrowed to the softness of her, the intoxicating smell of her. For all he’d been lit up only a few minutes ago he was drifting now, brain going fuzzy, eyelids heavy. 

He was half asleep when she spoke again, her voice a soft rumble in her chest. “Do you miss him?”

Crowley nuzzled her neck, placed a light kiss there. “No.”

“Is he still your friend?”

“Hope so. We’re trying.” Crowley yawned, the sleepiness getting the better of him, more than half gone now. He was comfortable in a way he couldn’t remember being, not ever. Esther was in his arms and even with his side of the bargain paid out she was curling back into him, a cuddly armful of warm pyjamas. 

“You shouldn’t have left him alone with Raph.”

If he’d been more awake he might have asked what she meant, or talked more, or just enjoyed his situation. Instead he drifted off, head swimming in lovely smells and blonde curls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	14. in this nether world I will not leave thee

Aziraphale didn’t make accusations, it wasn’t his habit. He ought to be grateful that he’d rarely had the occasion in his long life. He had been himself accused of a handful of things over the years, principally of naivety, but he didn’t think it was done with ill will. 

By the time Raphael was due to arrive back his anger had given way to exhaustion. He was in a situation, he’d decided, his palms stinging from the iodine he dabbed at the broken skin. When he could hardly call on Crowley for help without revealing all the embarrassing details of how Raphael had manipulated him, he decided the first order of business was confirmation. 

That had given him a little burst of energy, to have purpose, make a firm decision and move forward. He had hoped, maybe a little optimistically, that he might have misunderstood. Perhaps Eve’s other miracles hadn’t left the same miasma of love and he was being unfair on Raphael. If he could get out of the bookshop, hold himself together and do a little legwork he might find the problem was all in his head. That would make everything okay again. 

That hope didn’t last very long. He sat for several hours at a bus stop in Soho, across the street from a night eighty years old, a thermos of holy water changing hands. The street had been carpet-bombed with love, longing, terrified courage, it burst on his tongue like sherbet. 

So, no mistake. 

He didn’t sit there for hours because he wanted to. There was an angel in his home with an unknown agenda. He might be in danger and he didn’t know what to do about it. Every possibility sounded more absurd than the last. Fight him? Outwit him? He could barge back into the bookshop and tell Raphael that Eve had been found in China, watch him run off like a shot and buy himself some time to… to… He didn’t know. It was silliness out of a movie, not a real plan to deal with things.

Eventually he stood up and walked back home. He might have been naive and gullible, but he knew who he was, and it wasn’t a witty hero. He was the one who walked in and asked for an explanation. 

Raphael was pacing, running a hand through his hair, and his face crumpled with relief when Aziraphale walked through the door. 

“Oh, thank God,” Raphael breathed. “I saw the roses, I thought- I couldn’t find you. What happened?”

Aziraphale faltered. He was genuine, his mouth set in a grim line and his hair in disarray from his fingers combing through it. He’d been worried. He  _ had. _ But Eve’s miracle still lingered, love from two centuries past flowing around them like a river, buffeting them in the current. 

Aziraphale wet his lips. There was no point beating about the bush. “You can feel it, can’t you? You’re an angel.”

Raphael nodded, frown deepening. “Yeah, I can.”

“At the bus stop, as well. And all the other places, I assume?”

“Yeah.”

“That was why you didn’t want me to go to the church this morning? It’s all restored and positively bursting with love, I would think.”

“No,” Raphael said sharply. “No, yes, it’s strong there, but that wasn’t it.”

“Then what?” Aziraphale asked, trying to keep focused on the lies, not the way Raphael’s face was flitting between guilt and urgency without any note of malice. 

“I wanted you to have this morning. For you.” Raphael scrubbed his face with his hand, the pacing starting up again. “I know I’ve got some explaining to do, and I will, just please, dove, did you see her? Is she okay?”

Aziraphale softened. “She looked very well, if not a bit frustrated.”

“Thank God,” Raphael sighed again, slumping another inch. “Thank God.”

Aziraphale’s last sliver of anger slipped away from him. Whatever secrets he’d been keeping, Raphael was nothing in that moment but a terrified father whose daughter had run away, getting concrete news of her for the first time in weeks. Aziraphale never had that sort of relationship with Adam, or even little Warlock, he couldn’t imagine what he would do in the same situation. 

Crowley’s love was flooding him, flooding them, and he knew what he should have done to protect it. If he’d had his choice again he wouldn’t let any qualms dictate his actions, he would only act. Perhaps it was unfair of him to be upset with Raphael for doing whatever he could to get his Eve back.

“Raphael,” Aziraphale said gently, “Please tell me what’s going on.”

“Just give me a minute. Just-” Raphael pressed a hand to his face again, sniffed, and straightened, blinking. “Can we talk upstairs? Away from this?”

“I’d rather not.”

“I think we should.”

“Is it so terrible? Are you so offended that it was real and you can feel the proof of it?”

“It’s not real.” Raphael’s hands clenched, his eyes fixed away, shoulders tense. Guilt and pity and anger all in one, warring their way through his body, but his voice stayed soft. “It’s a memory. It’s not  _ real  _ and that’s what worries me.”

“It was. It was real.” 

“ _ Was. _ It… it  _ was _ real. It…” Raphael’s words collapsed into a frustrated growl. “This is what I’ve been trying to avoid.”

_ “What?  _ We’re only talking.”

“This… this… this conversation. It’s important and I wanted to have it…” He made a vague ‘elsewhere’ gesture with one hand. “I want you to have a clear head.”

“Raphael, please tell me what’s going on. What could this conversation possibly have to do with finding Eve?” 

“Nothing!” Raphael raised his voice, frustration bubbling over. “It’s got nothing to do with my little brat of an Antichrist. She’s got a whole bloody world to mess about with and instead she’s here and I can’t fix it and I’m going to wring her neck when I find her.” 

“Then what?” Aziraphale asked.

_ “You _ . It’s…” Raphael made a move toward him, frustrated hands flexing, but stopped before he reached him. He straightened, visibly calming himself and turned the full force of his lovely, golden,  _ pleading _ eyes on Aziraphale. “Can we please sit down? You’ll sit with me, won’t you?”

Aziraphale eyed the settee and armchairs. He ought to say no, it was clear Raphael was softening him up for something, but he was so earnest that it was difficult to deny him. For all Aziraphale knew he’d misinterpreted the situation completely, maybe he’d been rash, irrational, judgemental. 

He gave a nod and took one of the armchairs himself. Raphael sat on the settee, near enough to next to him, hunched forward with his fingers steepled. 

He looked like Crowley had looked the day he’d come to talk about the Antichrist. Something in the frazzled urgency of him, like he’d been up all night, Satan had been on his radio and his hair was messy instead of pretentiously, deliberately messy. He looked like it was the end of the world. 

“You’re sick,” Raphael said, a blank statement. It sunk between them like an anchor for everything else to come. 

“Don’t be ridiculous. Angels don’t get sick. I’m only tired, there’s been quite a lot going on of late, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Mm. You’re tired. All the time. Malaise, weight loss, anxiety, listlessness, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, you know where I’m headed, don’t you?”

Aziraphale bit his lip. Depression. A human illness, a chemical imbalance of the brain that reduced their capacity to cope with their environment. Incapacitating and in some cases fatal. He’d seen his fair share of those lost souls and always tried his best to heal, or to point them in the direction of health. It was more insidious than that, though, nothing a quick miracle could fix like a simple broken bone. 

It didn’t apply to angels. He shook his head at the unspoken implication, his body denying it before he’d even formed the words. “Angels cannot contract human conditions.”

“Angels can’t have a genetic predisposition,” Raphael corrected gently. “You’re not immune to your environment, dove.”

Aziraphale shook his head again, he couldn’t seem to stop, his body denying it even as his mouth struggled with the words. “That’s absurd, I’ve been here for centuries. What does this have to do with you obfuscating, anyway?”

“I lied to you. You can say it. I lied because I’ve been trying to help you step away from the thing that’s hurting you, and I knew that if you felt what was there it would just muddle things. Usually I’d want years, decades to help someone through this sort of thing but I could be gone at any minute, I had to take my best shot.”

“The thing that’s hurting me, what’s…” The truth of it struck like a fishhook lodging itself in his innards. The thing Raphael had been trying to lead him away from. “No. No.”

“Aziraphale-”

_ “No.  _ You said you weren’t here to judge us.”

“I’m not judging you.”

“You’re judging him, just because he’s a demon. You come in here, asking for my help and then accuse my partner of… of…” Aziraphale couldn’t give voice to something so ghastly. His mouth was trembling, he couldn’t believe how close he’d been to trusting Raphael, to following where he led. 

“Of treating you like garbage?” Raphael said, staring straight through him. “That’s not an accusation, it’s an observation.”

“You’ve no right. He’s… You don’t know him. He’s under a lot of stress.”

“I see that. Is he under stress a lot?”

“No, of course not! Most of the time he’s perfectly charming.”

“And the rest of the time?” 

“Don’t catch me out, Raphael. You don’t understand.”

“I think I understand a bit more than you’re giving me credit for. If you’re being treated badly by your partner all the time it’s going to leave a mark. If that’s not the mark I’m looking at then enlighten me.”

“This is all…  _ irrelevant _ . You don’t understand. If he’s being distant then it’s- it’s not his fault. I’ve... I did some things and I don’t want to go into it but if you knew then you’d quite understand why he is cold towards me.”

“How’s this? I don’t care.” Raphael gave an irreverent shrug. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that? ‘Oh, I cheated, I gambled, I drink too much, I put on weight, I breathed in his general direction.’ Unless you mind controlled him and made him act like a twat I just don’t care.”

“He’s no worse to me than you are to Esther.”

Raphael’s edges soften, his expression melting to purest sympathy (pity). He reached out tentatively, slowly, as if Aziraphale was a scared cat who might swat at him, and took his hand. Aziraphale was too tired to bat him away and so allowed the touch, not able to decide if he felt comforted or outraged by it. 

“Esther’s my enemy, Aziraphale,” Raphael said, so gently. “She’s killed me a dozen times. I’m not accusing Crowley of anything, I swear. I don’t know him, he could spend his weekends building orphanages for kittens for all I know. This isn’t about asking you to hate him, this is about asking you to be good to yourself.”

“By abandoning him?”

Raphael’s face fell, from pleading to grieving. “Maybe. If that’s what it takes to get better.”

“And has that… has that been why you’ve been paying me so much attention? Was it some attempt to… to… tempt me away from him?”

“ _ No _ . Don’t say that. Please don’t think that about yourself. I care about you. People can care about you.”

“He’s spent six thousand years caring for me.”  _ Your soulmate _ Mephistopheles had said, eight black eyes staring. Raphael didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand. Aziraphale had taken his time coming to terms with the idea that he’d lost Crowley’s love, but he could never accept losing the rest of him as well. It wasn’t right. They were supposed to be together. Aziraphale pulled his hand out of Raphael’s grasp. “I’d like you to leave.”

Raphael didn’t move immediately, snake-still and watching. When he stood it was decisive, like he had a new plan of attack. He strode over to the telephone. 

“I’ll leave, then,” he said as he picked up a pen and paper, scribbling something down. “This is my number. If you change your mind, you call me. If you don’t change your mind but you need something, you call me. If Eve shows up, if you need someone to drunk dial, if you want to yell at me, I’ll take your call day or night. Tell me you understand and I’ll leave.”

Aziraphale nodded. He needed Raphael to leave. He couldn’t cope with this, of all things, not right now. 

Raphael returned his nod and strode out of the shop as if he had somewhere to be. And maybe he did, what did Aziraphale know? He hadn’t seen this coming. 

He crumpled back in his armchair, bottle of wine wished into his hand and he took a long swig straight from the bottle before conjuring himself a glass and pouring. With a flick of his hands the doors locked and the windows shuttered, giving him the privacy he needed. He didn’t want to feel this.

He was an  _ angel _ . Raphael might have had him beat on healing credentials, but he was still fundamentally a part of the choir. He wasn’t supposed to be on this side of the conversation, desperately defending his partner’s behaviour to someone who didn’t understand. Raphael could say he wasn’t prejudiced all he liked, he’d made the leap between a few lukewarm conversations and mistreatment quickly enough. Aziraphale should have known better than to let him into his home, he had known from the beginning Raphael would be harsh with Crowley. 

Aziraphale downed his glass in one go and crushed his eyes closed, furious and hurt. 

To think, to  _ think _ , that he tried to get Aziraphale on side with him against Crowley. It was insulting to drag up all those people he’d treated, people who needed his help and try to lump Aziraphale in with them just to get at his alter ego. To rescue the poor damaged angel from the terrible demon. What a farce, what a prejudicial farce. 

Aziraphale caught sight of himself in the low hanging mirror on the column, his own ugly frown staring back at him. He was grim, the hollows of his cheeks too pronounced, his nice clothes now in rumpled disarray and an empty wine glass in one hand. He closed his eyes, focusing on the acid in his stomach and wave after wave of Crowley’s love buffeting him from all around. The most precious thing he’d ever had. 

Raphael thought Crowley had done this to him, because he didn’t want to see that Aziraphale had done it to himself. 

Aziraphale poured himself another glass. Raphael made it sound do simple, as if he could just leave and be free of it. That he’d  _ help _ him. As if it were that simple. There was no white knight to rescue him, no hero in this story. There was just him and whatever numbness he could buy to get through the night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	15. that hue which cowardice brought out

Crowley dreamed of peonies. It was a half-lucid dream, he knew he was asleep, his eyes closed, but felt the petals tickling at his nose, smelled the sweetness growing stronger as his body crushed the flowers. He exhaled across the silk-smooth flowers then drew the scent back in on his breath. His hands flexed in his sleep, grasping handfuls of them, dragging and bunching them together. Cream-soft and pale and sweet like heaven. 

He woke in the morning the same way he woke in the middle of a storm, something huge and intangible slapping the weatherboard walls and shaking the house around him. He opened his eyes just quickly enough to see the roses springing up from nothing, vases on vases of them blanketing the room. 

He sat up, disoriented in the cold bed, sleep-muddled mind trying to get it together enough to remember where he was and why and who the hell was conjuring flowers. The roses stole around the room like a plague of locusts, smothering everything. Still bleary from sleep the first thought his mind could put together was that Mel wouldn’t appreciate the redecorating. 

Mel. Sandford. He blinked to clear his eyes. 

_ Eve. _

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, taking too much concentration to get his limbs to coordinate when half his brain was still waking up. He tried to stumble out of the room and was _delighted_ to find he couldn’t take a step without kicking over a half dozen vases. It turned his groggy stagger into an uncoordinated dance, trying not to fall on his face. 

He managed to crash through the door too late, the front door standing open in the breeze and Esther gone. 

_ “Eve!”  _

She hadn’t gone far, her voice reaching him. 

Crowley was properly awake by the time he navigated to the front door and found Esther, barefoot on the lawn, still in her pyjamas, turning this way and that and calling for her Antichrist. 

“Where are you!” She cried it into the wind, searching blindly. 

Crowley watched her, something strange stealing over him. Sometimes life caught people unawares, he’d seen enough of that. It was always fascinating to see someone usually well put together suddenly barefoot in their pyjamas in public. Whatever airs and graces they put on during the day, no matter how perfectly styled their hair, how solid their hard candy shell, something about being outside in their pyjamas made them more… human. And Esther, just a bit more human, no makeup, no smug song to sing, no silk armour, was, well, she was Aziraphale. 

_ That _ was a complicated emotion - an overwhelming warmth mixed with generous helpings of paranoia and protectiveness. Something clicked inside him. Those were the correct feelings. He didn’t hate them. He wasn’t confused by them. That was how he felt toward her. 

It all sat so perfectly, so naturally, that he couldn’t resist poking at the bruise, testing the wall in his chest for a weak spot. He thought back to the last time he’d seen Aziraphale in his female form, the mid 1700s when he liked the fashions, especially the french fashions. He’d been lovely. Radiant, really, in silk and lace, with hair done by a human woman because he didn’t like to miracle it and couldn’t do it himself, a string of pearls draped down between his breasts. The same lost look on his face as Esther in this moment. Crowley had tripped over his own feet the first time he’d seen Aziraphale all dressed up like that, barely recovering in time to make a smooth entrance. He wanted to feel that again but there was no way to throw himself at the wall, to take a sledgehammer to it. He saw ancient Aziraphale and felt nothing. 

But Esther. That was a different story. 

While he stared she turned back to him, she was talking to him but he could only see the little furrow of her brow, the downturn of the corner of her lip. He could only smell peonies.

“ _ Crowley _ .” She seized him by the wrists, yanking him back into realtime. “We didn’t miss her, I was here, she’s here.  _ Where is she?” _

It hit him the same way it had for six thousand years. She needed something. 

Eve had been here, she was still here, in Sandford. His brain spun like a roulette wheel around the very few possibilities. The church yard where Aziraphale had slipped a scarf around his neck and smiled a megawatt smile at him. The coffee shop where Crowley had first confessed his love and tried not to fall apart when it was met with silence. The middle of the road where he had fallen apart anyway. 

“The motel,” he said. 

Then Esther was dragging him, one hand iron around his wrist until they were in the Bentley, in matching flannel pyjamas screaming down the streets of Sandford. Streets where the flowers so lovingly groomed by the country’s best gardeners had all turned into roses. Crowley knew better than to laugh. 

Crowley felt it before he saw it, in the pads of his bare feet on the lobby carpet, in his fingertips on ply board doors, in the stare of the humans as they ran past. Something swamping him, pressing in from all sides. Something good. And bad. Something that  _ hurt _ but he wanted it to keep hurting. 

The motel room wasn’t like he remembered it. It was smaller, duller. It was stuffed with roses, which was new, and a new demon wringing her hands in increasingly frantic motions. It wasn’t under a magic spell cast by two lovestruck idiots who had inadvertently created their own high drama movie set for their romance. It was a motel room and in the light of day it wasn’t much to look at. 

Esther turned glassy eyes on him. “She’s not here.”

“This was where she came,” he said, because it hurt more here. He pushed through the rose field, kicking the damned things out of the way, and made his way to the bedroom. 

Eve had gotten it right this time, or at least more right than before. The vases were all mismatched, the bouquets mostly pink roses and all wrapped in neon wrapping paper. It was very, very close. He didn’t know if she knew what miracle she was trying to recreate or if she was just ripping some imprint out of the air. But she was trying to recreate it. She was trying to get back there. 

The bed was like he’d left it that morning. The too-expensive duvet lay rumpled at the foot of the bed, dozens of cushions scattered where they’d fallen, twisted by clenching hands, an imprint here of a laugh smothered, one kicked off the bed as they twisted and turned in the night. 

A single peony bloom, perfect and fresh, sat in the middle of the bed. 

Crowley walked up slowly, feeling the pressure get stronger and stronger. He reached out and plucked the flower between two fingers, twisting the stem to look at it from all angles. 

By the time he saw the little spark of light hidden in the flower it was too late to put it back down. 

It wasn’t a blow, it wasn’t shattering. It was like turning on a tap, the pressure of a whole water system flowing in on itself finally finding an outlet to run freely, loosening, relaxing, flowing. Crowley let out a breath he’d been holding for twenty years. 

He looked around the well-appointed room, the space and the light of it, midday sun streaming through the sides of the curtains where they fell ceiling to floor. The roses were gone, just miles of empty floor for him to slowly circle back to the door, the big, posh, folding door arrangement he’d pressed Aziraphale against as they’d stumbled into the bedroom, lost in their first kiss. 

Crowley eased the door open, looking out into the suite he’d stayed in while they were at the flower show. It was just the same, and there, in the overcompensating marble kitchen, Aziraphale stood by the countertop, his hands wrapped around a teacup. 

“Good afternoon, dear,” the angel said, smiling warmly. 

Crowley sagged, leaning his weight against the door. Aziraphale had never been so beautiful as he was in that moment, the sunlight hitting him just so, his cheeks flushed a happy pink, his curls fluffier than they had been, something freshly rumpled and honey sweet about him. Something heavy, too. A worry. 

“Would you care for some peony tea?” Aziraphale offered. “Peony scones with peony jam?”

Crowley couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but watch his beautiful angel, making jokes and sipping tea the morning after they made love. The same strong hands that had dug into his skin, sunk into his hair now held a teacup in a feather grip. The same voice that had risen, burned blasphemous cries into Crowley’s skin was now back to its familiar cadence. 

There was something else to it all, something careworn and struggling. The weight of Heaven bearing down on Aziraphale’s shoulders, warring with the joy. He hadn’t seen it the first go around, he’d been too wrapped up.

“You’re beautiful,” Crowley said, brain stuck, heart stuck, peony crushed between the fingers of one clenched hand. 

Aziraphale’s eyes flicked down, a shy smile blooming on his face. A switch had been flicked in Crowley’s brain, he couldn’t unsee Aziraphale arched naked on the bed, moaning and flushed. And also here, in this light. Adorable and lovely and  _ his. _

And he’d failed. Crowley watched this moment in time, a freeze dried flower captured just like it had been. Aziraphale happy and shy, all his barriers crumbled down when he still had so much to fear. How had he missed it? It was all there, in the tension of Aziraphale’s shoulders, the little quiver of his smile. He’d put himself in Crowley’s trembling hands and Crowley had fumbled it. 

It was all ruined now, all broken. He’d looked into those big, trusting eyes and… 

Crowley surged forward, hands already outstretched. He took the angel’s face in his hands, the peony crushed between their skin, and kissed him, hearing the teacup spin and teeter on the marble benchtop, Aziraphale’s surprised  _ mmph _ as he hurried to respond. Crowley pressed him back against the bench and kissed him. Aziraphale’s hands fell to his wrists, anchoring himself. 

He couldn’t fix this. It was all too broken. But he couldn’t wreck it again either. So he kissed Aziraphale with everything he wanted to be in this moment, the heat and the love and the  _ understanding _ he deserved, showering his mouth with messy kisses that left his lips red and swollen, left his breath coming in uneven gasps. 

They kissed like new lovers, everything stripped back twenty years, Aziraphale melting into him, their hands searching, bodies trying to get closer. It had been hours - too long, in the blush of something new, an eon since they’d been kissing, been touching, naked and entangled. 

“I love you,” Crowley mumbled, resting his forehead against Aziraphale’s. 

“Crowley…”

“Don’t. Don’t say it back,” Crowley panted, mouth still tender from their kisses. “Be scared, if you’re scared. It won’t change anything. I’m here and I’m not leaving.”

“That’s not fair,” Aziraphale said, his breath gusting hot over Crowley’s face, so close their eyelashes fluttered against each other’s. “It’s not fair on you.”

“Don’t care.” Crowley could lie. This wasn’t real, he was allowed to lie. Maybe if he believed it, it would be true, he could change the past with pure force of will. If he could hold together a burning Bentley, if he could stop time itself, maybe he could do this too. “You can’t lose me, not really. Be scared. I’m here, I’ll protect you.”

Aziraphale let out a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob, a hot tear clinging to Crowley’s cheek as Aziraphale’s hands tightened to fists in his jacket. His angel kissed him, more gently this time, not desperate but thankful. 

“I love you,” Aziraphale whispered. 

Crowley closed his eyes, fighting the tears that stung them, fighting the way his heart crushed in on itself and his throat closed. He let go of Aziraphale’s face so he could wrap him in his arms, crush him close, his hands so numb he didn’t even notice the peony drop from his fingers.

The flower hit the ground with a wet thud, the spark in it flickering once, then dying. 

Crowley jolted back to reality, standing in the bedroom, the crushed pink flower lying in the centre of the bed. 

He looked around, blinking, not quite recalling why he felt like crying. He rubbed at his chest where it hurt. Early morning light filtered through the cheap venetian blinds, the room too white and too cold. He walked out in a daze, back to the little room with its cracked plaster walls and chipboard kitchenette. 

Esther’s hair was dishevelled, her bare feet dirty, and there was a dangerous glint in her eye. 

“This was where you first fucked him then, was it?” she asked, her voice worrisomely calm. 

“Yeah,” Crowley said, still trying to sort out up from down. 

“And you didn’t think, perhaps, that such a thing might have been more relevant to Eve than the place where you pawned off your better angels like cheap jewelry?” 

Crowley was still reeling, still dazed, but he knew that tone of voice and he knew a slap in the face when he saw one. He surged forward, hand fisting itself in Esther’s shirt, pushing her back and looming over her. 

“I’m sssso sssorry, your majesty,” he hissed, baring his teeth. “Maybe when we disssect your life for kicks we’ll have better luck.”

Esther stared up at him, jaw set, defiant. “Oh, please. It’s not me you’re upset with.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I don’t have to. I know Mel, I’ve seen it all before. You love him and you forgot what Hell can do. You watched all those humans take wealth and love and fame from her knowing it would turn to ash in their mouths, but you thought when she gave you what  _ you _ wanted it would be the real thing.”

“Shut up.” Crowley growled, frustration and anger getting the better of him. It would be easier if she wasn’t right. 

“And now your life is ash and your love is ash, you clever boy. And you don’t even realise you’ve thrown it away twice now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Esther smirked like she was hearing a very old joke. “You left him with an archangel. With Raph and his god complex. By the time we get back there he’ll have his claws sunk so deep in that angel he’ll never want to see you again. You’ve already lost him.”

Crowley shoved her back, releasing her with a scowl. A pressure in his chest insisted it couldn’t be true, that if Mel hadn’t made the angel lose interest then nothing Raphael did could make the difference. Aziraphale was  _ his  _ and nothing could change that. The feeling pressed at his chest, something possessive, an instinct that couldn’t quite find a reasonable thought to latch onto. He didn’t care. He couldn’t care and he knew it. 

The cards in his head stacked themselves higher, trying to climb up to a reason why Esther’s words upset him. They found nothing, hanging on air, kept aloft by opposing pressure because if he didn’t have a reason to want to be in London, he had a very good reason to not want to be in Sandford. 

He was sick of this town and this room and being on the road all the time. He was sick of this feeling he couldn’t latch onto and couldn’t ignore. 

“Oh, my dear,” Esther murmured, slinking closer to him, her hair still smelling like the best night’s sleep he’d ever had. “It’s been a terribly hard week for you, hasn’t it?”

“What do you care?” he snarled, wishing he sounded less like a lost kid fighting back tears. 

Soft fingers brushed his face, wiping away the tears that hadn’t come, soothing some of the pressure in his eyes. He didn’t want to turn into the touch, but he did anyway. She cupped his face in one hand, soft and lovely once again, the claws retracted, the thorns hidden in the bloom. 

“You’ve been so very good to me, Crowley. Why wouldn’t I care?”

Crowley held her by the wrist, letting her stroke his face, boxed in on all sides and not knowing where to turn except to her. She ran hot and cold, but it was a predictable kind of dance and her hair smelled so good. He nodded as best he could, acknowledging her. 

“Let’s go fetch our things and get you back to London, shall we?” Esther cooed, still stroking him. 

Crowley sagged with relief, swaying into her, and let her lead him out of the room, out of the motel, out of Sandford. They’d tried and failed, it was time to go home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	16. rends, beats down, and bears away

Aziraphale woke in the middle of the night, breath caught in his throat. He rarely dreamed, and the dreams he had tended to dissolve like melting sugar on waking, all images slipping away. But in the eternal semi-dark of London night the nightmares clung to his mind. A Bosch triptych where every frame was Hell. He knew, having been there, that humans made up a lot of the more gruesome activities of Hell but his subconscious mind had not taken that into account. 

The telephone was just downstairs, Raphael’s number sitting next to it. He could call. Make up some excuse or speak the truth plainly - he’d had a nightmare. 

_ Hello, Raphael, _ he’d say.  _ I’m badly hungover and scared of my own dreams like a little child so called you to come and rescue me. _

He squirmed with embarrassment at the thought, imagining that familiar scoff, the eye roll he could picture clear as day, a gentle admonishment that Raphael didn’t know what Aziraphale wanted him to do about it. It wouldn’t go like that, he knew that, he knew it, but he didn’t know how it would go. The bad taste of his nightmares and the anxiety at the thought of reaching out mixed up with each other and he eventually made no decision, paralysed in his bed.

He lay awake for hours, trying to stop his mind turning over the dreams, the events of the day, and whatever else it could cling to, before falling back into a fitful sleep. 

The telephone awoke him anyway, sometime around mid morning, the sun high and the streets busy. 

Aziraphale stumbled down the stairs, trying to get to it before it rung out. There was no one who could ring him that he wanted to hear from, but the ever-present possibility that Eve might have broken her armistice kept his feet moving. 

_ “It’s me,” _ Crowley said without preamble.

“Oh, hello, dear.” Why did that tone of voice send a chill through him? Why was his temperature rising, his spine stiffening?

_ “Sandford was a bust, we’re coming back to London. Be there in a few hours.” _

“Of… of course. A few hours. Jolly good.”

_ “Jolly good,” _ Crowley mimicked, without fondness or disdain, just saying the words back to him. Pointing out how outdated the phrase sounded. 

The line went dead.

Aziraphale turned to look at the shop. He could tidy up a bit before Crowley got back, he could set things a bit straighter. He snagged the empty wine bottles from the sitting area, the used wine glass. In the kitchen he grabbed a cloth and bustled back to deal with the minor spill on the coffee table.

There wasn’t much to be done about the books, they were always so disordered, so  _ messy _ and Crowley didn’t care for mess. He didn’t say anything, exactly, just the looks he cast around when they were getting comfortable together, the way he always seemed to leave earlier than necessary. His own flat was minimalist and spotless. He’d been away almost a week with Esther, maybe Aziraphale could make the return home a little less disappointing.

Aziraphale found himself standing above his coffee table, staring at the spot where the stain had been, cloth clenched in one hand. His stomach was roiling from the aftertaste of wine, his head spinning from his interrupted sleep.

He didn’t want to do it.

He didn’t want to fuss about the shop, trying to make it right when it would inevitably not meet standards. It didn’t even matter, the problem wasn’t the shop, it wasn’t the strange smells he cultivated to ward off customers or his laissez-faire cataloguing system. The problem with the shop was that he was in it.

Aziraphale stared at the wood of the table. He didn’t want Crowley to come back.

It was a horrid thought. It was the bitterest betrayal, he knew it. To injure his friend in such a way and then get tired of being understanding. Only the last few days had been so nice. Raphael was so kind to him, even if it was for a terrible purpose. He’d been able to just potter about his home without even thinking about what Crowley would think of it, or him. It meant something dreadful, didn’t it, that someone being nice to him made him want to cry?

He closed his eyes. It didn’t matter. He refused to let this get the better of him. He could be too tired for himself, for waking hours and opening hours, for food, for books, but he would  _ never _ be too tired for Crowley. 

Except that he was. If he didn’t crumble today it would be tomorrow, or the next day. 

Raphael had tried to tell him. He was sick. He was getting worse, not better. It had snuck up on him over the years and he didn’t know what the end point would be. For a human it would be decaying brain function, failure of memory, and maybe death if left completely untreated for decades. 

What was going to happen to him? And if he became completely incompetent or… or the worst happened, what would become of Crowley? In his state would he be able to feel the loss, or just write it off as some unfortunate happenstance and move on?

Aziraphale picked up the phone again. He had never been the sort of person to just let things happen to him. He’d do something. He’d get ahead of this. He’d either save or damn himself, as he usually did. 

_ “Aziraphale?”  _ Raphael answered on the second ring.

“Yes, it’s Aziraphale, it’s me.” He squeezed the rag in his hand tighter. “Crowley called, they’re on their way back. No luck in Sandford, I’m afraid.”

_ “Yeah, right, okay. When are they due in?” _

“A few hours, he said. But, I…” Aziraphale paused, trying to sort his thoughts into words. “You said, yesterday, the things you said, you said you were concerned about me. That is, that you weren’t trying to cause Crowley any harm.”

_ “I did.” _

“Did you… mean it? Not to suggest you were lying or… or…”

_ “I meant it.” _ Raphael’s voice dropped into a tender murmur, yanking at Aziraphale’s heart in his chest. 

Aziraphale squeezed the rag tighter, squeezed the phone tighter. “Do you think you might come over before then? Just for a chat?”

_ “I’ll be there,”  _ Raphael said so quickly he almost cut Aziraphale off.  _ “Have you eaten? I’ll bring something. I’ll be there soon.” _

“Oh, oh, jolly good,” Aziraphale said, hearing the echo even as he said it. 

He heard the smile in Raphael’s voice.  _ “See you soon, dove.” _

Aziraphale let the receiver drop back into the cradle. He wondered, still numb and cotton-mouthed, if it would be in some way healing to scream like they did in the movies. Or he could have a go at one of those tearful breakdowns, sliding down the wall with his face in his hands, that always seemed rather cathartic. 

Instead he walked into the kitchen, made himself a cup of tea and sat quietly on his settee, waiting for Raphael to arrive. His head throbbed and his throat was musty, too much wine the night before. He was equal parts nauseated and ravenous, and couldn’t say if it made his sadness worse from the compound misery or better for the distraction. In short, he wasn’t feeling his best. 

Barely fifteen minutes passed before the bell above the door rang out and Raphael was there, all long limbs and deep voice, a brown paper bag in hand. He was a flurry of movement, setting boxes of chinese takeaway out on the coffee table while talking nothings, like he was trying to rush right past any awkwardness the previous day might have brought up. 

It was quite nice, really. Aziraphale had never seen Raphael experience any kind of fluster, and it suited him. Made him more human. 

“Did you sleep alright?” Raphael asked, looking up at him. 

“No, I had horrid nightmares.” Aziraphale put it out there, the bait, the trial run. Something that would give him a clue of how Raphael was going to approach his request, once he’d dithered himself out. 

“Nightmares? You should have called, that’s what I left the number for. Anything you want to talk about?”

“No,” Aziraphale mouthed, shaking his head, letting himself smile a light smile. 

Raphael pushed a box into his hands and they busied themselves separating paper serviettes and chopsticks, the kind that had to be snapped in two and the splinters rubbed off. It wasn’t his usual fare, that he ate purely for the pleasure of it. Raphael didn’t serve him confit of anything, or reductions of anything or things that would test his French skills to order, but the smell of the over-processed beef in thick sauce soothed his troubled stomach perfectly. 

Raphael made his usual motions of setting himself up to eat, setting down his utensils and then forgetting the food was there. 

“So,” Raphael said, eyes on Aziraphale as he tucked into his food. “You wanted to talk.”

Aziraphale chewed thoughtfully, eyeing up the angel across the table. He wasn’t sure how his plan would be received, and was loath to speak with his mouth full anyway, so he took his time before replying. “I did. I’ve thought about what you said.”

“And..?”

“And I don’t want to hear any more talk about me leaving Crowley, it simply won’t do. But, I thought, perhaps, you might be right about some of the rest of it. My state of health. I’m afraid… I’m afraid I’m feeling rather fragile. Con-constantly. And if I could learn how to-to better manage this fee-fee-f-f…” Aziraphale cute himself off, pressing his lips together as his chin started to wobble. He closed his eyes, sucked in a breath through his nose and let it out, then took another bite of his food. Raphael would understand and he wouldn’t be badgered into eating this time. 

“You want to treat the depression,” Raphael said, flat. He scrubbed a hand down his face. “You want me to help you survive him.”

Aziraphale said nothing, holding eye contact and continuing to eat. It was helping his stomach, his bleary mind. Because Raphael helped, in his own imperfect way. Everything he’d done had worked. The food to treat his exhaustion, the church to ease the way he always wanted to curl in on himself, the company to curtail the dark thoughts that crept in. Raphael’s way worked and if it could lighten the load even a little maybe Aziraphale wouldn’t ever have to face the day when he could no longer bear to have Crowley around. 

_ Don’t come, _ he had nearly said into that telephone today.  _ Take another week, another month. Go on holidays, you’ve got Esther to focus on. You don’t have to come here, you don’t have to talk to me or call or write. _

He didn’t know when he’d started to feel that way, when the odds of Crowley being foul and ill-tempered and hurtful on his next visit became greater than any hope they might enjoy the time spent together. When had he decided he wanted Crowley to be in love with Esther? That it was better that way if it kept Crowley’s attention elsewhere?

He wasn’t going to give in. Not ever. Crowley would always be welcomed into his shop and if it hurt, it was Aziraphale himself lashing out from the past, not any fault of Crowley’s. 

Raphael was giving him that pitying look again, but he was cracking, Aziraphale could see it. 

Finally Raphael sighed. “I dunno if… You’re not  _ human.  _ I can tell them to eat their potassium and get some exercise, take medications. I can’t mess with your brain chemistry, it’s not connected to anything up there.”

Aziraphale said nothing and continued eating, taking a bet that Raphael, like Crowley, sometimes needed to reason things out verbally and would simply keep talking if given the chance. The way his face and hands moved, like he was having some great internal debate, confirmed it. 

“Alright, okay, alright,” Raphael said, hands working. “I can… We can work on it. Work on it together.”

“Oh, really?” Aziraphale asked, brightening. Raphael might have said no, set out the terrible ultimatum to choose between Raphael’s help and Crowley’s company. But of course he hadn’t. Of course. 

“Yeah. Already started, haven’t we? Food, that’s doctor’s orders now. You have to eat every day. And sleep a full eight hours, no more neglecting your corporation, that’s not helping anything.”

“Alright, I can manage that,” Aziraphale said, trying to look studious and serious while chewing on a mouthful of noodles. “What’s step two?”

Raphael gave a pained grimace. “You’re not going to like it.”

“If you’re going to say that I need to leave Crowley…”

“I’m not. Really. It’s just, people in your… situation…”

“I’m not in a situation.”

A helpless laugh, gold eyes cast skyward. “Fine. People. People who are… sad. For unspecified reasons. Tend to be isolated. You need to get more people around you.”

“People? You can’t mean humans.”

“I can.”

“Make a connection only to grieve them in a few short decades? I hardly see how that would improve my mood.”

Raphael nodded, leaning forward further. “Yeah, they’ll die, and more will get born and they’ll do a lot of fantastic stuff in between. You can’t do this alone. Things have to change, Aziraphale. You can’t keep banging your head against this wall if you want to get better. You’ll have to accept that you need to do things differently. Go to church. Start a bookclub. Get people around you.”

Aziraphale nodded again, taking it in, trying to commit the sentiment to memory along with the instructions. He could do that. He’d been close to humans in the past, from time to time, there was no reason he couldn’t again. “Very well. I’ll do my best. What else?”

“Just one more thing, really. Get this one right and the rest’ll come. I’m going to need you to forgive yourself.”

There was a ringing in Aziraphale’s ears, high pitched and constant. He held his chopsticks in one numb hand, the tips resting against the food container as the world narrowed in on him. 

“Forgive myself?” he asked, the words coming out as a thready bit of nothing. 

“Mm, yeah.”

“Oh, I don’t think… I don’t…” Aziraphale tried to find the words, something that didn’t sound as stupid as  _ can’t we do without that part? _ Raphael wasn’t going to let him get away with that. “I can face up to my mistakes, Raphael. I can, I have.”

“That’s not what I asked you to do.” Raphael rose from his seat in the armchair and took up a place next to Aziraphale. He slid one warm hand into Aziraphale’s, letting the abandoned chopsticks clatter to the table and taking up the space with the comfort that seemed so vital these days. “I asked you to forgive yourself.”

“I don’t deserve it,” Aziraphale said, voice still cracked and reedy, squeezing the hand in his own until it hurt.

Raphael just kept leaning closer, as if he couldn’t stop himself, as if every jagged breath and grasp at his hand compelled him further. He sat next to Aziraphale, thigh to thigh, hands entwined, his free arm coming around Aziraphale’s shoulders and his face warm and close and so gentle. Like Aziraphale was about to fall apart and he had to keep him all together. 

“You remember how the Greeks used to say it, don’t you? Sin was  _ hamartia, _ a mistake. And forgiveness was an  _ aphesis, _ a letting go. You made a mistake and you won’t heal from it unless you can let it go. You feel like if you move forward it means what came before didn’t matter, but it’s not true.”

“Is it that simple then?” Aziraphale asked, a twinge of bitterness finding its way in. “I simply decide I’m forgiven and it’s so?”

Raphael kissed his forehead, then leaned against him, nose to temple, holding him tight. “No. It won’t be simple. But this sadness is your penance, I know that. You can’t get better while you’re still paying.”

Aziraphale gripped Raphael tighter, somehow now in this entangled, overwhelming embrace. It felt bad, or good, or both, but he couldn’t bear to pull away. Raphael was asking the impossible. “What if I can’t?”

Raphael kissed him again and finally just folded him into his chest, cradling him. And that felt good, just good, to be held and comforted. Aziraphale closed his eyes and buried his face in Raphael’s neck, holding on for all he was worth. They rocked ever so slightly back and forth, held there in the dead air of the bookshop, which didn’t feel as unpleasant or as dirty as it had half an hour ago. 

“We’ll work on it,” Raphael murmured into his hair. “Together, dove.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	17. keep concealed from thee my heart

Crowley knew Eve wasn't just hunting for his love. He could amuse himself with the thought of her finding a foreign love and stuffing it into one of Raphael’s orifices to see what happened, but no, that wasn’t it. There was something else playing out that he couldn’t get a grip on. This kid had a better plan. 

If he could just figure out what it could be, maybe… _Pfff. Maybe what?_ He mocked himself all the way back to London. Maybe he could save the day, sweep Esther off her feet, be the big hero again. He’d be playing to the wrong crowd. These creatures didn’t care about him. 

Esther had defrosted, slipping from steely to warm as easily as changing her clothes. She’d let him do her hair, the platinum locks slipping through his fingers, twisting them, pushing jeweled pins against her scalp. She’d kissed his fingertips to thank him. 

He was a mess, he decided on their drive home, and he thought heartburn might feel like this. Raphael was doing something unspeakable to Aziraphale at home and he wasn’t sure he could counteract it. Esther was smiling at him and cracking high brow jokes and he couldn’t help himself from laughing. They still had no idea how to find Eve and soon the warm jokes would turn back into cold fury at his uselessness. Feelings on feelings that were half-formed and half-stolen, and the end result was - he was pretty sure - heartburn.

“What’s he doing?” Crowley asked when they were getting close, the streets tightening and winding as countryside became city, the question that was nibbling at his shins thought he didn’t want to think about it. 

“Hmm?”

“Raphael. You said he was getting his claws into Aziraphale.”

Esther twisted her cigarette around between thumb and forefinger, studying it. “What do you imagine an archangel would do if he found some poor, innocent angel ensorcelled by a big, bad demon?”

“Aziraphale loves me, he knows it’s not like that.”

“Does he?” She asked. “After all this, is _love_ really the word?”

“Loyalty, then. Archangels have to respect fidelity, don’t they?”

Esther snorted out a laugh. “After Eve made us all work in a women’s shelter last year, I assure you they don’t.”

Crowley grimaced, flicked his tongue over his teeth to get the bad taste out of his mouth. It was love, Crowley knew it. No one would have stuck around for so long for anything else. Love with a dash of guilt thrown in. But whatever was going on with Aziraphale nowadays, he couldn’t resist a stiff breeze, much less a righteous angel. 

He didn’t want to think about it, so he asked about the other part of what she said. “Does Eve just drag you around cataloguing human misery?”

“Sometimes. She wanted to take a look at what she has to work with, up close and personal. It’s not just the miserable things, we’re fresh off drinking mojitos in Hawai’i to experience idealised leisure.”

“How was that, then?” Crowley blew right past the idea of Esther in a bikini, on a sun lounge on the beach. “Wait, do you have pictures of Raph on the beach? Please say yes.”

“You’re not seeing them.”

“Don’t tease.”

“Do you really want to see your own knobbly knees out for all and sundry? Besides, I’m in my bathing suit in those photos.”

“That’s really not a dealbreaker.” He squeezed her knee and she giggled. She was lovely when she giggled, when she was light and teasing. If he could keep her in these moments he’d keep her forever. 

That was the point, he supposed. Aziraphale’s charms were awkward and earnest, Esther’s were artful and skin-deep. A weapon honed to a deadly point. How many people had an arm draped around her shoulders as she led them into Hell? _Just follow me, tag along, let me show you what I keep under my skirts._ And now he was the schmuck with a hand on her thigh but, well, it wouldn’t work if it wasn’t fun, and where could she lead him that he hadn’t already gone? 

Heartburn, heartache, heartsickness, it was all lodged in him firmly enough that a little more couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t hurt. It wasn’t damage anymore, it was just rearranging the mess inside to something else, maybe something that didn’t sit so uncomfortably at the base of his skull and in the beds of his fingernails.

So when they pulled up in front of the bookshop, he opened the car door for Esther and he let her pierce him with that lovely, deadly point. He looped an arm around her waist and held her pressed against his side as he led them into the bookshop and wasn’t that something. It felt good, the pure, unadulterated kind of good that he could get for seconds or minutes at a time. Something in his chest, in his hands, relaxed, told him that Esther soft and warm against him was the correct bandaid for his broken leg. 

“I must get some photographs of you while I’m here,” Esther said, grin playing at her lips. “I could find amusement for years to come reminding Raph of that time he wore a sombrero or some such.”

“I am not going to put on a sombrero for you, I draw the line-” Crowley pushed through the door and stopped in his tracks, unable to stop the soft _ooooooh_ from whining through his lips. 

He liked spooky, creepy, unsettling things, he did. But while he was drawing lines, he drew one right at this very particular point. This was too creepy. 

Aziraphale sat in one of his chairs, Raphael standing over his shoulder, both of them looking up to where the demons were slinking through the door. Aziraphale was in new clothes, a bright sort of mustardy colour to his jacket that made him paler, more washed out, his hands around a teacup and his knees primly together. Raph had tidied himself up, too, a sharp jacket over his slouchy greys that made him less casual and more Men’s Vogue Autumn Collection casual. 

It took Crowley back to the old styles of family portrait, the dolled up wife in the chair, her husband proudly looming over her. The two of them looked like they were in one of those glossy spreads that progressive magazines liked to do with gay celebrities to prove how nonthreatening and asexual they were. The two of them looked like they lived in Stepford. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said brightly, eyes flicking between the two demons in his doorway, his smile turning forced. He made no move to stand up, Raph’s hand heavy on his shoulder. “And Esther, of course, lovely to have you back.”

“What happened in Sandford?” Raph asked. “How did you miss her?”

“It turns out she’s searching for self-righteous blowhards,” Esther said, leaning further into Crowley. “So we thought we’d try here.”

 _“Lovely_ to have you back,” Raph dripped with sickly sarcasm. “So, what, she’s got what she came for? We should just wait for her to contact us and take her home?”

“She didn’t get it,” Crowley said. “She was trying to recreate a miracle, but she missed the mark.”

“What miracle?”

Crowley met eyes with Aziraphale. “She conjured roses instead of peonies.”

Aziraphale’s lips pulled back in a horrified grimace, devastation falling on him in a single blow. Raphael was with him, hand clutching at his shoulder, their eyes meeting in a conversation Crowley couldn’t interpret. The way he sunk and crumbled, face contorted in pain, was terrible. It was unfair to blindside him with it but what choice did they have? Nothing for it, now, they were on the butcher’s block and he couldn’t save anyone from the knife. 

Crowley hated it. There was always the danger, even on the quiet nights with just the two of them, that with a misplaced word or gesture he’d remind the angel of how it had been before. It was always ugly, painful and awkward for both of them. There was a tightrope stretched across their conversations: don’t plummet off one side with a too-tender smile or too-kind word, where Aziraphale might remember how happy they could have been, and don’t stray into the other with a snap or a growl, where they both had to confront what had changed. Don’t remind the angel that they’d loved each other like that, with wild abandon that had pulled itself out of the air in puffy pink flowers. Don’t let him know that the roses that were slowly filling up their days were a cheap imitation of the thing they’d destroyed. 

It was all unfair and unpleasant and maybe the worst of it was airing their dirty laundry in front of the neighbours. 

Crowley gave Esther a squeeze. “Give us a minute?”

Esther frowned at him, her mouth half open to object, but something in her face settled and she smiled. She stretched up, one strong hand against his chest, and pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek. “Of course, dear.”

And oh, wouldn’t that have been so sweet if she hadn’t immediately glanced at Raph to see if she’d hit her mark. From the way his cheeks flushed in anger, his mouth set hard: bullseye. 

Esther slipped away, disappearing into the stacks, delighted grin on her face. That was something he was going to unpack at a later time. 

Crowley looked to Raphael, pointedly raising an eyebrow. Neither of them moved. Raphael’s hand clenched on Aziraphale’s shoulder, creasing and uncreasing the mustard fabric.

From somewhere in the back the opening strains of _Seaside Rendezvous_ rang out on the old piano and Crowley couldn’t stop the grin that cracked his face. “She’s spent too much time in the Bentley.”

He turned back to the angels, waiting for Raph to give. 

“Do you mind?” Crowley asked. 

“Not at all,” Raphael replied, still not moving. 

If Raphael wanted a fight, that was going to end up embarrassing both of them. Crowley had last thrown a punch in the 1400s and it hadn’t been an impressive moment of martial prowess. It had felt very dramatic at the time but in the aftermath he recognised that it was more a hair-pulling slap fight. There hadn’t been a clear winner but, for a variety of reasons, Crowley had most certainly lost. 

Words were his stronger weapon. “Are you his guard dog, now?”

“If I need to be.”

Crowley scoffed. This was ridiculous. He’d expected Raphael to be a wanker, and he’d half expected the archangel refusing to leave him alone with Aziraphale. It was the way Aziraphale didn’t fight him on it that stood Crowley’s hackles up. His angel didn’t look comfortable with what was happening, eyes darting this way and that, mouth pursed, poised to speak, but he didn’t speak. He just sat there, waiting for Raphael’s decision. 

Esther had been right. Raphael wanted what was his and he moved fast. 

Crowley shrugged. “Alright then. Aziraphale, why don’t you tell him about the peonies?”

Aziraphale turned bright pink so quickly it bordered on cartoonish. The little bit of light that had returned to his face was crushed out, leaving him shuttered, blushing and staring at his teacup, mouth stumbling over half words. 

The little glimmer of smug victory Crowley had anticipated failed to show up. Aziraphale was supposed to back him on this. This was their past, things they needed to talk about without eavesdroppers, Aziraphale was supposed to want to talk to him. He’d meant it to be _kind._

Did Aziraphale not want to talk to him?

“Oh, I… The peonies, yes,” Aziraphale fumbled, face hot with humiliation. He was doing it, the bloody idiot was actually going to tell Raphael about the first time they had sex. 

“Hey, none of that,” Raphael said, his whole attention turned to Aziraphale. “You don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to do anything just because he’s pushing you.”

 _“What?”_ Crowley didn’t think either of them heard him. 

He watched as the two angels in front of him were all of a sudden holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes. Raphael was staring at _his_ angel like he needed rescuing, like the apocalypse had just fallen apart and he was staring into space and needed someone to sit next to him and offer a place to stay, a chance to decompress, hoping he wouldn’t retreat so far into his own head he couldn’t climb back out again in time. Something horrible had stuck itself to the back of Crowley’s throat, lodged itself between his ribs. A week. He’d only been gone a week. 

That was… that was _his_ look. Aziraphale didn’t have anyone else, he’d never had anyone else, _Crowley_ was the one he looked to, grateful and trusting when he knew the rest of the world was against him. That wasn’t love, it hadn’t been love, just a little building block of it. Mel hadn’t taken that from him. Crowley was a jerk and a clumsy, heavy-handed idiot nowadays but he wasn’t a threat. He’d never be a threat. Not to Aziraphale. 

So why was it when he talked Aziraphale shrunk and crumbled and when Raphael talked he put himself back together?

Crowley scowled down on the tableau, anger mounting. He knew why. Because Esther was right. Raphael had turned Aziraphale against him. Aziraphale had been in a bad way, he was vulnerable, and that gold-eyed ponce had seen it. He’d seen it and he’d moved in. Save the weak little angel from the terrible demon. Maybe he couldn’t help himself, archangels were just compelled to meddle, or maybe it was a swipe at Crowley himself for falling, for letting down the team. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t happening. 

“It’s alright, my dear. I think Crowley and I should have a word,” Aziraphale murmured, still staring into Raph’s eyes like they were… they were… had they..? 

A burst of white-hot fury flooded Crowley. At Aziraphale, at himself and most of all at Raphael. If he’d taken this chance to mess with Aziraphale’s head that was one thing. If he’d used it to get the angel into bed Crowley was going to rip him limb from limb. He was going to show that smug, condescending prick everything he’d missed out on in Hell. 

Raph glanced at him and Crowley didn’t know what he saw, could only imagine the livid expression on his own face, his eyes yellowed out and a hiss trying to escape his mouth. But Crowley knew what he himself saw, the barest hint of a smirk before Raphael pressed a kiss to Aziraphale’s cheek, just like Esther had done, before he straightened. 

“I’m in shouting distance, if you need me,” Raphael said as he took off, heading in the direction of the music. 

Aziraphale was finally moving again, not just an ornament in Raphael’s picture-perfect setup. He stood up and turned to the kitchen, bustling away. “Come along, my dear. It’s best we have a chat, don’t you think?”

Crowley followed on numb legs, his brain ticking and whirring, trying to come up with something, anything that looked like a plan of action. But the machinery was all stuck in neutral. Raphael had gotten to him and Crowley didn’t know what to do about it.

So he slouched against a kitchen counter and tried to focus as Aziraphale cracked the fridge and started fishing things out. Esther would keep Raph entertained for a while, maybe give him a black eye if Crowley was lucky. 

“You two seem to be getting along,” he said, aiming for casual. 

“As do you and Esther,” Aziraphale shot back, a bite in his voice Crowley hadn’t heard in a long time. “I know you disapprove but he’s been very kind. What did you find?”

Crowley shrugged. “Nothing. She’s got her wires crossed somewhere, with all the roses, but come on, we know what she’s looking for.”

Aziraphale shuddered, lip trembling, fussing about with a chopping board and a knife. “We haven’t talked about it, have we? I think the larger question is what she plans to do if she finds it.”

“Stick it up Raphael’s arse, I assume.”

Aziraphale flashed him a reproachful look. “She might target Raphael. Or Esther, if her goal is some kind of - of matchmaking scheme. Or she might have romanticised the notion of you and I, she may try to correct…” The words came out carefully as he realised he was straying into charged territory. “... she may try to set right what - what she perceives as having gone wrong.”

“Me. You think she’ll target me.”

Crowley could see the question that hung between them. _Would you like her to?_

“Maybe,” Aziraphale conceded. “If that’s something she wants. She might have some other plan entirely, and I don’t care to find out.” 

“What are you doing?” Crowley asked, Aziraphale’s hands coming into focus, the ingredients he was slapping together. 

“Making lunch.”

Crowley stared down at the chopping board. Aziraphale ate mille-feuille or parfait for snacks, when he ate. When did he eat, lately, anyway? “Since when do you eat ham sandwiches?”

Aziraphale sucked in a breath, girding himself visibly. “Raphael suggested it might be good for me.”

“He’s got you on a diet?” Fuck. Fucking hell. Fuck. It couldn’t be this bad this quick. Gabriel hadn’t managed it in six thousand years. “What for?”

“For my health,” Aziraphale said firmly.

“For your what? You what? Are- have- wh- you’re an angel! _What_ are you talking about?”

“Not for my corporation,” Aziraphale said, defensive, clutching the edge of the bench. “Only I’ve been a touch run down recently, and-”

“And Raphael’s come to save the day, has he?” This wasn’t going to stand. Raphael wasn’t going to get away with this. He might be the shittest boyfriend in existence, but he wasn’t going to sit idly by while Aziraphale was taken for a ride. He stepped up closer to Aziraphale, pinched the lapel of the awful yellow jacket between thumb and forefinger. “And the new wardrobe? Is he dressing you now, too?”

Aziraphale swallowed, his throat bobbing. He looked up at Crowley through nervous eyes. “My clothes don’t fit me anymore, Crowley.”

“I don’t like the colour.”

The angel blinked up at him, a wry, agonised smile played on his lips. “Tell me, my darling, what colour you’d like, if I’m the one wearing it.”

Crowley growled under his breath, fingers tightening around the fabric of that jacket he was hating more by the second. Aziraphale was so close, his nose just inches from Crowley’s, challenging and stubborn, stuck in his ways so firmly that he’d go back to Heaven’s gaslighting just to spite him. 

“He doesn’t care about you,” Crowley murmured.

A little spark of anger crackled at that. “People can care about me, Crowley.”

“He’s using you.”

“He’s not-”

“Are you sleeping with him?”

Aziraphale paled, something unreadable settling over his face, his posture. His voice came out a dry whisper. “Is this what we’re doing, now? You’ve come in here draped all over her and accuse me of… of…”

“Fraternising?” Crowley suggested, unable to help himself.

The unreadable expression on the angel’s face morphed, step by step, until Crowley was sure he was about to throw up. He stood frozen in the cold kitchen, a sandwich half-made on the chopping board, sick and grey like Crowley had just punched him. 

Crowley knew the feeling. He didn’t like this, he wasn’t proud of this. But Aziraphale hadn’t denied that he was fucking Raphael. That was the carrot Raphael was dangling in front of his nose - _I’ll give you all that affection you’ve been missing, so long as you do everything I say._ And what the hell could Crowley do that was worse than that? He wasn’t watching the angel go back to Heaven, not if he could do anything to stop it. 

Aziraphale dropped the butter knife in his hand, eyes glazed. He stepped back from Crowley, the snagged lapel slipping through his fingertips, and straightened himself out. “I think I need a lie down.”

“You don’t.”

“Let me know if you all come up with something, won’t you?”

“Aziraphale.”

There was no point, he was gone, the sandwich half-made on the bench, footsteps retreating up the stairs. 

So that hadn’t worked. He’d try again, try something else. He wasn’t such a complete monster that he’d sit by and let this happen. He couldn’t do much right by Aziraphale, but he could do this. If it was the only thing he ever did right again, he wasn’t going to let Raphael brainwash Aziraphale. He’d find a way to fix this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com.)


	18. forgotten is that love which nature makes

Aziraphale didn’t have a lie down. He didn’t even sit, standing in the corner of his bedroom, door firmly closed on the outside world, wondering if he ought to be pacing but instead standing in place, wringing his hands. 

He wanted to cry. That should have been easy enough, shouldn’t it? He’d had a fight with his partner, hurtful words had been said, he ought to... Cry? Yell? Hit something? Any of those would do, surely. Any of them would be better than standing here, in the corner, paralysed, tugging at the cuffs of a jacket he’d quickly come to hate. It was the proper thing to do to take some time for himself and release a bit of the tension.

But there was the rub, wasn’t it? He couldn’t break the tension, he never could. That suggested something might be different on the other end of it - that he might have a moment of weakness, then go back downstairs with a cool head and talk it out. If he could do something about it then he might make some progress, start making things better instead of wallowing in this mire of misery that didn’t seem to have any edges. 

The sob he wanted to come turned into a whimper in his throat. He pulled off the jacket, tossing it on the bed like it was contaminated, and tugging off his bowtie to follow it. With the offending garments gone he grabbed a bottle of wine from his nightstand, which hadn’t been there before, and poured a glass. He drank it down with an unbecoming desperation. If he couldn’t have relief, he could numb the pain, he could get through the day. He just needed a half hour, ten minutes, five even, where his brain wasn’t running crushing circles around one of the people downstairs. 

The wine didn’t taste like anything, a tangy aftertaste of vinegar and sugar that clung to his throat with each gulp. With only two glasses drained he was already feeling loose. Not good, but the pain had shifted from a fist around his heart to a slow burn acid in his gut. 

Crowley hated him. It had moved beyond not loving him, he didn’t know when. All the resentments had piled up, all the little annoyances and the big regrets, they’d burrowed too deeply and now anything he did was turned to a crime in his beloved’s eyes. Making a sandwich and wearing a new jacket had been his misdemeanours this time, and he could catalogue a thousand more, piling up over the years - a bad joke here, a smile too bright there, the wrong clothes, food, music, books, opinions. 

It wasn’t always so bad and yet… Crowley was so very  _ stressed _ and some short temper was to be expected and yet… Raphael’s words hung in the air, haunted him, because he knew they were true. He’d dealt with his share of battered family members.  _ I took the day off work,  _ one had said, looking up at him through bruised eyes, not trying to defend herself, but her husband, to make Aziraphale understand what terrible crime had precipitated this.  _ I told him to turn the music down, _ said another, with bare feet, unharmed but frightened out of her wits, running in the middle of the night.  _ He saw me texting while he was talking, _ said a young man in the depth of his panic attack, shoulders shaking with the effort of keeping the tears in.

Aziraphale looked in the mirror at his shaking shoulders, his sunken eyes.  _ He didn’t like the colour of my jacket.  _ The tiny offense that had somehow spiralled, in Crowley’s eyes, had shown all of Aziraphale’s weakness, his gullibility, his infidelity.

He’d done this. He’d done this to  _ Crowley _ . Sharp, funny, thoughtful,  _ beautiful _ Crowley. 

It was one thing to suffer, he could rationalise it, even feel somehow noble to bear up under the pressure. But by his own hand he’d turned the loveliest creature he’d ever met into a monster. He’d done what Hell had never managed. 

The tears came then, great, gasping sobs that welled up and burst out of him in an instant. He struggled to gulp down more wine, to get it under control. No one wanted him emotional right now. They had a crisis. If the consequences of his actions were catching up with him then he only had himself to blame. If he went downstairs in this state he’d deserve every bit of derision they could throw his way. He wasn’t important right now, Eve was important. Eve and her plans, her world, her misplaced, youthful rage. Not him. 

He had to get this under control. He didn’t know what he was going to do, today or tomorrow or for the rest of eternity but it was going to start with him walking down those stairs looking put together. He dragged another mouthful of wine down around his hiccoughing breath. 

A knock on the door startled him, his already shaking hand landing a damning splash of red down his beige shirt. 

“Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale pressed his hands over his own mouth, the wine glass falling to the carpet unnoticed, a shock of fear hitting him so strongly that he thought for a moment he might faint. He looked at the door, tears blurring his vision, a sound not unlike a scream muffled behind his hands. 

He didn’t know who was on the other side of that door. He couldn’t bear for Raphael to take more of his time and attention away from Eve and Esther, and he didn’t know what Crowley would do if he found him in this state. 

So he tried to hold that ghastly shrieking sound in his mouth with both hands, his chest heaving, knowing he was failing. 

The door opened anyway and then Raphael’s arms were around him, pulling him close, smothering the wails against warm grey cotton instead of his own skin. He wrapped his arms around Raphael’s waist in an iron grip, his body folding into the embrace, certain if he moved at all he’d collapse. 

“S’alright, you’re alright,” Raphael murmured. “Just get it out, you’ll be alright.”

Raphael didn’t understand. He’d done something terrible. He’d done the worst thing he could think of. He’d hurt Crowley. Not with a fist or a sword, something so much deeper, so much worse. He’d cut so deep that the love of his life was unrecognisable, a creature who never should have existed. 

Oh, God, what if Eve forced it back onto him? What if, after everything he’d done, Crowley was suddenly made to love him against his will? How was he supposed to survive that?

The sobs he tried to stifle became hysterical at the thought, his lungs refusing to breathe, his teeth crushed together, only the high pitched whines that he just  _ couldn’t stop _ making it through. He couldn’t do this anymore, any of it. His body was failing him, his mind, his heart. He couldn’t move or breathe or think, all he could do was press his face into Raphael’s neck and wail. 

Raphael held him tight. Every minute Aziraphale expected him to pull away, to tell him to buck up, pull himself together, but he didn’t. One hand in his hair, one rubbing his back, Raphael held him upright without complaint until the sobbing had weakened to little gasps and all his raised muscles had softened to trembling jelly. 

By the time Raphael eased him down to sit at the edge of the bed, he could breathe again. They didn’t separate, Aziraphale clutching at Raphael’s sleeves, his knees, and Raphael keeping comforting hands on him, not forcing him to be alone again so soon. Aziraphale slumped, shock settling over him like a cold blanket, unable to hear anything but his own trembling breaths.

“I can’t do it, can I?” Aziraphale breathed, the words coming out tremulous, barely audible. “I was a fool to think I could stay with him and make things better.”

“Listen to me,” Raphael’s hands dug into him, a hair away from shaking him. “ _ Listen to me _ . You aren’t a fool. You haven’t been a fool. You’ve been trying the only way you could. Yes? Understand?”

“No, no, I don’t understand,  _ you  _ don’t understand…” Aziraphale dissolved into syncopated gasps again, whines at the back of his throat, the enormity of what was happening hitting him.

“Aziraphale…”

“It’s  _ Crowley _ . It’s  _ Crowley! _ ” He fisted his hands in Raphael’s shirt, only just falling short of pounding on his chest to make him understand what he was asking. “We’re talking about Crowley. The first mistake I ever made he was there to poke fun at me about it. And he did, he did… he... ” Aziraphale fumbled, voice falling, trying to find just one short sentence he could use to plead with Raphael, to show him how impossible the situation truly was. Just a few words to sum up everything Crowley was to him, to the world. Or just to himself, with no one watching, no yardstick to measure. If Aziraphale had never met him at all, had never taken a single gift or favour or smile, the magnitude of this loss would still be unthinkable. He’d destroyed the most precious thing he’d ever had the privilege of touching. He’d given away the flaming sword all over again, not out of kindness, but fear. 

“He’s everything to you,” Raphael said, voice deep and even, like he was talking to a frightened animal. “He’s been a cornerstone of your life for six thousand years and losing that feels like the end of the world.”

_ It is, _ Aziraphale almost insisted, almost whined out into the world even knowing how stupid, how melodramatic he sounded.  _ It is the end of the world. _

“I’m not stupid, Raphael, I know it’s not that.”

“It is. It’s life as you know it disappearing, doesn’t matter that it’s with a conversation instead of a bomb. You should be afraid because it’s going to hurt and you’ll feel lost and alone and you’ll think about a hundred times a day that you got it all wrong and it wasn’t that bad and you should take him back.”

Aziraphale let out a hopeless laugh. “That’s not much of a sales pitch.”

“‘Ziraphale, you’re making all four of us wonder if an angel can die. You know this isn’t going to have a happy ending.” Raphael held him tighter, kissed his hair, calloused fingertips and warm breath as his heart threatened him again. “Doesn’t mean you can’t be happy. Endings can start something else.”

“And what of Crowley? What does he do once I’ve cut a chunk out of his soul and then run off to find my brave new world?”

Raphael didn’t answer immediately, his cheek rested on the crown of Aziraphale’s head, hands rubbing gently, soothing. They shared breath for a long moment, nothing but warm air passed between them, warm bodies pressed to one another, until Raphael spoke. “He deserves the chance to be happy, doesn’t he? Properly happy?”

Without Aziraphale. He wanted to hate Raphael for saying it, but he knew it was true. And maybe… maybe that wasn’t something so terrible. Mephistopheles had cut out Crowley’s love for him. Him. No one else. Maybe if the raw wound wasn’t being irritated so often, the inflammation would die down, he’d heal. 

If that was his choice it was a wretched, rotten, infernal choice, and also no choice at all. Crowley could be everything he was before, just out of sight. 

Three paper cups on a table. Round and round they go, each containing one of his worst fears. Mephistopheles who could look into the truth of things, who could cut pictures out of magazines and paste them together as new ones. He could trade one punishment for another. Then, and now, too. Did he want this poisoned shadow of Crowley or no Crowley at all?

It wasn’t a choice, it wasn’t a question. The only wildcard was his own heart. If he could be strong enough, he might save Crowley. But strong? He wasn’t strong, at his best he wasn’t strong. He’d always worked around it. He was clever, he was kind, he was diligent, those things could be better than strong, and had been when he’d needed them. Except the once, when it had counted for more than all the other times combined. 

If he’d been searching for penance, maybe he’d found it. A do-over. A chance to be strong. 

Or maybe he was just a fairweather fool, being blown in a new direction by a handsome stranger. 

“I need to think,” he said, coming back to himself, realising his breathing had evened and his shoulders weren’t shaking, at least not so badly. His eyes were still fuzzy and sore, his joints loose. He stared up into those familiar, not familiar eyes, the face he’d so often turned to for comfort. “Why are you so kind to me, Raphael?”

Raphael smiled a sad smile, nostalgia for something long past or something that might never be. “You’re Aziraphale.”

“What does that mean?”

“Raphael and Aziraphale. Both of us, in both these places, it’s more than coincidence, don’t you think?” He ran his thumb down Aziraphale’s jaw, and Aziraphale remembered what it was like to be precious. Raphael’s smile saddened again. “I bet somewhere out there none of this happened. I bet we’re happy.”

Aziraphale jerked away, the live wire of that thought too much for him. He stood on steady-enough legs, hands pressed against his eyes as he fought off thinking about it. The two of them, somewhere, neither fallen, or both, or maybe some combination where it had all worked out anyway. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, letting the pain distract him. 

“Thank you, Raphael. I need to… need to…” He let his hands drop, a few steps away, at the window that overlooked the streets, and caught sight of the first petals as they started to fall. Pink this time, no red or white mixed in. “Oh, dear.”

Raphael was beside him again, both of them watching out the windows as the rain of rose petals came down, a light blanket at first but soon sheets on sheets of them, and then more. Aziraphale watched, mystified, as the windowboxes on every building sprouted jessica roses, and then more entranced as the cracks in the pavement began to crumble, thorny green stems shooting up and growing, blossoming, blooming. 

It was reminiscent of snow, Aziraphale thought, the paleness of it, the thickness of the blanket, the streets and rooftops as far as he could see covered in powder pink. There was something beautiful about it. 

“What on Earth is she doing?” Aziraphale said, hypnotised by the sight in front of him. 

Raphael let out a huff that might have been a laugh, or a groan. “She’s throwing a tantrum, dove.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	19. steps along this savage thoroughfare

“If somebody doesn’t find Eve in the next hour I’m going to lose my temper.” Esther stormed about the bookshop floor with a sense of purpose, eyes blown black and a cigarette fuming from one hand. 

London was slowly becoming less a city and more a floral arrangement. Aziraphale could imagine the morning papers running articles on the emergence of an invasive rose species. Raphael frantically scrolled through his phone on the sofa beside him, their knees brushing, Esther marched from end to end, while Crowley slouched against a bookshelf, a shadow amongst shadows. Three people anxious to get something done who could do nothing. Four. Him too. He didn’t know what to do. 

“What’s the miracle?” Raphael asked. “You said she was trying to recreate peonies.”

Crowley met eyes with Aziraphale, both of them not wanting to say it aloud, for different reasons. It wasn’t as though the others didn’t already know, or couldn’t have guessed, but Aziraphale squirmed with embarrassment just thinking about saying it out loud, in front of guests. 

“It was… it was…” Aziraphale stammered, and this time Crowley didn’t stop him. Aziraphale fluttered and wiggled in discomfort. Nothing for it, better to rip off the bandaid. “The first time Crowley told me he loved me… we… rather accidentally, you see, performed a similar miracle with peonies.”

Crowley straightened, his lips parting in surprise, eyebrows drawing together. He was so shocked that Aziraphale was taken aback, second guessing himself. That was what had happened, wasn’t it? He hadn’t misunderstood or somehow misrepresented it, had he?

“Which one of you?” Raph asked, not looking up from his phone. 

“Pardon?”

“Which one of you performed the miracle?”

“Both of us. I’m not sure about the mechanics but, well, neither of us could reverse it.”

Well, Crowley had reversed it, later, after he’d given up his love, chopping down the tentpole to the miracle - what made it, what sustained it. 

Esther and Raphael looked to each other. It might have been the first time Aziraphale had ever seen them look at each other, really look, rather than stare each other down or give each other judgement once-overs. They stared at each other, questioning, sharing a single thought but not saying it aloud. 

It was Esther who broke first. “Flowers?  _ Flowers _ , for hell’s sake? Why would she come here to hunt down  _ flowers? _ It’s nothing, Raph! She’s going to get herself bloody well killed while we sit around here talking about love and drinking tea.” Esther’s voice rose as she talked, her face growing paler. She pressed her fingers to her forehead and then waved them all away, the universal gesture of  _ I’m done with this conversation _ . “I need a minute.”

Aziraphale thought Crowley might follow her as she swept out of the shop, and he moved like he might, arms uncrossing, shoulders jumping, but before he had the chance Raphael was on his feet and brushing past. 

The door slammed shut behind them with a jingle and Aziraphale found himself alone with Crowley again, the air thick with something awful, heavy and strained. He ran a hand down the buttons of his waistcoat, hoping Crowley wouldn’t say anything. New clothes again, the wine stains on the last could have been miracled away but he felt better for being properly clean. 

He was being paranoid. Crowley had gone fifteen years with a scant few comments on his clothing, and rarely anything outright negative. The morning had been an aberration. They were just having a bad week and now, surely, they could talk, or not talk if they chose, without having an argument. He was reading too much into the way Crowley’s eyes lingered on him, the slightly flabbergasted set of his mouth and eyebrows. 

Aziraphale glanced to the door. He rather wished Raphael hadn’t gone. He felt a little woozy from all the excitement and a little foggy from all the wine and it would be easier to go finish making that sandwich if he had Raphael to defend him from any pointed comments. 

“Didn’t you know?” Crowley spoke, a disjointed sentence that clearly had quite the lead-up in his own head. 

“About what, dear?” Aziraphale asked. 

“B-before I said it. In Sandford.” Crowley's voice skipped up and down, like it was trying to settle somewhere between hurt, angry and bewildered and instead ricocheted between all three. 

Aziraphale wasn’t being paranoid, he realised with a sinking in his chest. They couldn’t talk, or not talk as they chose. 

This could have been a beautiful moment, if everything had gone as it should have. Crowley was bound to ask one day, he supposed, whether Aziraphale had been sure of him, and for how long, and to what extent. Aziraphale could have told him everything - how each little gesture girded him through insurmountable challenges, how Crowley’s charm and swagger and solicitude had been the high point of whole centuries, how he felt he had been struck by lightning in a ruined church, clutching a bag of books. He could have made a soliloquy of his gratitude, his affection. 

Or not a soliloquy. He would fumble, he knew, for the words to express that night. The first time he’d been lost in Crowley’s embrace, those words whispered like a prayer against his skin, he’d let himself feel it wholly. No doubt, no anxiety, none of the fear that lined his skin and thrummed through his veins, just everything happening in the moment. He had been overcome. And Crowley, too, he must have been for it all to explode out of them like that. Miracles made not by Heaven or Hell or even love but by  _ them _ , free to be themselves for the first time.

They should have kissed, after such a confession, embraced and thanked God or Satan or whoever was listening that they were finally free and there was no soil for new fears to take root.

But no, Crowley was hurt, and accusing Aziraphale of causing that hurt, and Aziraphale didn’t think he could stand the sound of his own voice spinning more explanations, the high pitched whine in his inner ear as he defended and coaxed and flattered. 

“Of course I knew, dear,” he said, the flat, almost professional tone something he felt in his throat more than heard with his ears. He cleared his throat and folded his hands, then changed his mind and stood up. “Do you know, I think I’ll just check on the others, make sure no blood is spilled.”

Crowley scowled but didn’t stop him. For the best, really, their every conversation nowadays left him confused and turned about, he was going to end up talking himself in circles, saying things he didn’t mean. 

Aziraphale found Raphael and Esther leaned against the Bentley, surrounded by rose petals, passing a cigarette between them. He paused in the door, unnoticed, watching the two of them. For all their bombast they had known each other a thousand years and Aziraphale supposed it would have been impossible to have no quiet moments, no comfort in each other. 

Esther’s brow was still creased in frustration, Raphael’s smile easy and teasing, trying to cheer her up. They were both gazing upwards, to the facade of the shop.

“Can you see it?” Raphael asked.

Esther frowned. “Yes.”

“Funny or depressing, do you think?”

“I can’t decide.”

Raphael cocked his head. “I thought the ‘A’ stood for Aeshma.”

“It does,” Esther insisted. 

“And the ‘Z’?”

“It’s a ‘Z’, it was fashionable to have two initials at the time.”

“Why not ‘E’?”

“E. Z. Fell? It sounds like some sort of… I don’t know. Something cheap.” She glanced over at Aziraphale. “Oh, hello, there.”

Raphael started a little on seeing him and dropped the cigarette, grinding it under his heel like a schoolboy caught behind the toilet block at lunchtime. It was sweet, or something like it, watching an archangel bashfully pretend he hadn’t been smoking. 

“How’re you doing, angel?” Raphael asked.

“Oh, fine. Just thought I’d come and see if Esther was feeling alright.” It was  _ angel _ , he noted, now, not  _ dove. _ It would get rather confusing otherwise, he supposed, but he had little time to react as Esther pushed off the car with a sigh. 

“You’ll go see the apartment, Raph?” she asked. “Double check for me?”

“Course, dove. She’ll go back to home turf, you’ll see. You be alright here, Aziraphale?”  _ With these two _ remained unspoken. 

Aziraphale nodded. “Quite alright, my dear, you need to see to Eve.”

“Stop fussing.” Esther strode away from Raphael and took Aziraphale by the arm, a shock of pink silk and strong perfume. She offered a glossy smile. “Honestly, as though you can’t leave him alone with himself for an hour. Come along, dear, I’ll show you my favourite piano piece and I’m sure it will be your favourite, too.”

“I’ll just be off, then,” Raphael said. 

“Find her, Raph.” Esther’s tone was sharp enough to send a shiver through Aziraphale, but then he was being guided back through the door, her arm through his and a hand firmly around his bicep. 

Aziraphale had never liked to take charge, or perhaps hadn’t been given many opportunities. It was a choice, but it also wasn’t. His former overseers hadn’t cared much for backtalk or input from him, and ordering humans about was at once facile and unpredictable, so he rarely pressed the point. Crowley would let him get his own way often enough without any attempts at being domineering. A kind word, a pleading look and a thoughtful argument had won the day often enough for him but all of that had been a choice. He knew his voice could come out strong and precise and he could wield a sword to lend weight to his argument. It wasn’t so much surprising to see Esther take command as it was interesting. Nostalgia for something that had never happened.

“Crowley, dear,” she purred to the shifting black shadow, a jumble of awkward limbs who didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. “Take the car and check in with Adam, would you? I don’t know the terms of their truce but I wouldn’t like to see the two of them getting into it.”

“You won’t be coming with me, I take it,” Crowley replied dryly. 

“I’ve some things to take care of here.”

And just like magic, with only some minor frowning and gesturing, they had the shop to themselves, Crowley and Raphael dismissed like hourly staff at five o’clock. 

Was it absurd to admire her? They weren’t so different. He’d dressed his hair just as she did, on the rare occasions he’d worn it long, and it was only a few short decades ago Crowley had promised to bring him the stars if he’d so desired. It felt vain to envy the glimpse of her he had, like commissioning an over-flattering portrait of himself and then boasting about the beauty of the subject. And childish, to want the parts of her that shone most brightly without considering the hefty cost she’d surely paid. 

Esther settled onto the piano bench with a relieved sigh, Aziraphale sinking down beside her without a thought. 

“Those two take it out of me,” Esther sighed, striking up a slow song on the piano. 

Aziraphale couldn’t help but agree. When all the complexities of the situation were stripped away, they exhausted him. “Are you feeling better?”

“Oh, yes. A bit. It’s trying, isn’t it? Navigating all this silliness when I’m sick with worry. Did Adam put you through half so much?”

“There’s not much to compare, but it was an ordeal, to put it mildly. He made it rain fish, you know.” He paused, listening to the song that was becoming more familiar as Esther played, fingers dancing over the keys as if by their own will. He’d heard  _ Unchained Melody _ sometime in the 50s, more than a decade after realising he was in love with Crowley and some years before things would go right between them again. It hadn’t been one of his more graceful moments, he’d had a few gins and blubbered freely over the recording, reading too much of his own situation into it as morose drunks were wont to do. “Are you making fun of me with this?”

“A little,” Esther confessed. 

“That’s quite cruel.”

“I’m quite cruel,” she said, but her hands stilled, the music lilting to a stop. “But I suppose you’re right, I ought to pull myself together before she finds us. I wouldn’t want to say something I’d regret. I thought you might want some time away from them, as well. We can decompress together, with the right music choices.”

“Do you find it odd that we haven’t tried to get to know each other?” Aziraphale asked. It had niggled at him as the week progressed but he didn’t seem to be able to spare much of a thought for Esther. 

“Not at all. I know you already, and you know me, don’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose I do.” 

“No use creating a drama when we’ve plenty on our plates already. And I spend little time in conversation with my mirror.”

It was something of a relief to have it put into words. He knew her already. He could imagine every step and misstep of her life as easily as breathing. There was a lot of glitz and glamour separating them, but little mystery. He breathed it out. “Quite right. I do wonder if you’re… disappointed with me, though.”

“Oh, you’ve been listening to Raph, then, have you?” Esther asked. 

“Why? What do you expect he’s told me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Ignore them. Raph thinks anything outside of Heaven needs to be  _ fixed _ and Crowley sold his good taste for scrap. And if I can offer my advice to my own good self, if you’re going to play dumb, look like a woman, people buy into it better.”

“Play dumb?” Aziraphale squeaked, very close to offended. 

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. Those two might be silly enough to think you’re being whipped about on the inopportune winds of fate but I know better.”

“My dear girl, I resent the insinuation that I asked for any of this to happen.”

“But it has happened, and now you’re putting it all through its paces. Abusing yourself to the very brink to see if it makes a difference. Because if you’ve done that and you’ve seen it doesn’t, you can let it go.”

“That’s quite an accusation. You think I’m playing at being unhappy?”

Esther took his hand, holding it tightly between both of hers, her bright, glazed eyes staring somewhere over his shoulder. “I think you know the value of things. Crowley is - well, was - worth your tears. All I’m saying is Raph will try to push you, and I know how annoyingly right he can be, but you know what you want out of all this and you shouldn’t let him change it.”

“I’m not sure I can get what I want out of this.”

“Well aside from that. Crowley’s out of reach, we both know that, but you’ve decided what you want instead. It’s terribly romantic. A mortification, a great funeral pyre for what was. I’d do the same.”

“Oh, I think that’s the worst advice I’ve ever received,” Aziraphale said weakly. 

Esther grinned. “But from the best source.”

Aziraphale looked down at his hands, just to have something else to look at, twisting his fingers around one thumb, then the other. He  _ wasn’t  _ playing dumb. He  _ was _ whipped around by the winds. Sort of. Oh, he’d had an out, fifteen years ago, he could have accepted the situation for what it was. But that moment of weakness, taking Crowley back, he couldn’t have known how it would turn out. Well, he had guessed, and it hadn’t been a bad guess. But… but… Aziraphale looked down at himself. Maybe he had known how loose his clothes were getting, and why. 

He decided that he hated talking to demons. They were hardly better than angels but, oh, they seemed it. Thoughtful and funny, the ones he knew, their callous touch always seeming just to brush away the layer of self-delusion that kept him in check and held him back in equal measure. It was difficult to say if they ever meant to be kind, but it always left him as confused as anything. 

“Well, thank you, dear. So long as I don’t give you anything to worry about I shall call it a victory. You’ve much larger things to worry about than me, I’m sure.”

“Do I?”

“Well, losing the Antichrist was more than enough pressure for me, at the time, and I didn’t have to worry about Satan wondering where his son had gone. I’m sure that’s more important.”

A spark flared in Esther’s eye, a blankness falling over her face. She blinked, eyes still fixed in the middle distance, the air stilling between them. “Quite right. Quite right, my dear. I must make use of your library, I think. I’ve just had a thought about finding her.”

“Of course, make yourself at home. Can I help in some way?”

“Oh, I couldn’t impose.”

“But…” Aziraphale glanced at her face, wondering if he ought to be delicate. “Your eyes, dear.”

“Don’t worry about me. Some peace and quiet will do me better than a guide dog, I’m sure.”

Aziraphale hesitated only a moment before ceding the point. He didn’t have energy to counter any machinations. Her only aims seemed to be finding Eve, which he couldn’t object to, and annoying Raphael, who seemed an old hand at deflecting her. So what was the harm, really, in giving his permission to read his books? She’d likely do it with or without his say-so. 

When she was gone, somewhere deep in the shop getting up to her mischief, he rested his fingers on the piano keys. He pressed one down with a satisfying  _ plink  _ that brought a smile to his face, unbidden. Books were forever his treasures, but he could imagine this being worth his time. He could imagine sitting blind by the fireside in the days of Cain and Abel, the first flute hollowed from a reed and what colour it might have brought to his world. 

It made a certain sense, he supposed. They were the same, after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Unchained Melody" was first released in 1955 for the film Unchained and has been covered by virtually everyone, most famously the Righteous Brothers. 
> 
> I like the Glee version.
> 
> Come fight me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	20. to manifest these novel things

Aziraphale mulled things over, sitting at the piano until the minutes or hours blurred into each other, sunrays shot through with motes resting on his hand, his elbow, his shoulder. He sobered up the human way, letting time trickle past until he moved from drunk to tipsy, just edging into the foul aftertaste of hungover. And he told himself he was letting ideas percolate and eventually the bombardment of pressure from all sides would crystallise into a single useful thought, like high pressure streams stripping carbon from steel. 

He was still hoping it would happen when a feather-light touch to his shoulder startled him. He jerked back to reality and looked up into the mirror shine of Crowley’s sunglasses. 

“Alright, angel?” Crowley asked. “I was calling you.”

Aziraphale let out a shaky breath, his heart thumping from the fright. “Of course. I was a million miles away. Any luck with Adam?”

“He was out, or didn’t want to see me. Can’t blame him, really. Think Esther was just trying to get rid of us, anyway.”

“She’s very particular.”

“Sounds familiar.” Crowley slouched against a bookshelf, hands in his pockets. “Taking up the piano?”

Aziraphale glanced down, having quite forgotten he was seated at the instrument. “Oh. Ah, no. I think I’ll leave it to my more talented half.”

Crowley said nothing, watching his own shoes like they were fascinating, the heavy, dusty silence hanging between them. It occurred to Aziraphale that Crowley was trying to be polite, checking in here before he went to find Esther. He tried to come up with something to say to allow it without sounding like he was sanctimoniously dismissing Crowley, but only landed on a little bit of fluttering and a sigh which didn’t convey much. 

He was saved when the bell at the door chimed once more, Raphael’s dogged radiance creeping into the cracks. 

Aziraphale didn’t quite manage to disguise a sigh of relief. “Let’s go see how they’re doing, shall we?”

Raphael was hardly through the door when they found him, the three of them meeting by the entryway, on the great rug that hid heavenly sigils. Raphael’s mouth was open to speak but he was cut off. 

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a cunt?” Esther was clear and calm, almost conversational. She sat in Aziraphale’s favourite armchair, glasses perched on her nose and a large book propped open in her arms, her gaze unerringly focused on Raphael. 

Raphael raised an eyebrow, then sunk his hands into his pockets, his spine slinking into a curve as he faced her, a posture that was so like Crowley on the defense that Aziraphale was jarred back to the reality of their situation. Raphael was Crowley, Crowley was Raphael. 

“You, fairly regularly,” Raphael said, just as strong and clear. “But I assume you’re about to make some kind of subtle point.” 

“I’ve just been doing some light reading,” she said, settling the book back so the title was visible, one of Aziraphale’s prized Bibles in her arms. 

“How?” Raphael demanded.

Esther grinned a wicked grin. “It’s a misprint. Devil’s in the details, dear.”

Aziraphale stepped back, on edge at the way the air bristled, and realised he had made a terrible mistake in leaving Esther unattended. The way the two of them slipped into such aggressive postures so easily set all his skin to gooseflesh and their many stories of discorporating each other didn’t seem like anecdotes of a far past rivalry anymore. 

“Alright,” Raphael shrugged. “You’ve got our attention like you wanted. What’s the scene we’re playing out? Song and dance number? Murder mystery?”

“There are some interesting differences between our Book and this one,” Esther continued like he hadn’t spoken. “A few verses missing from Revelations. But then you knew that, didn’t you?”

“Esther, don’t.”

“But would you look here? There’s some passages quite the same. Let me quote you one of my favourites.” Esther whipped open the Bible dramatically, reading aloud. “ _ ‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus said, ‘This very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.’  _ That was to Peter, dear, you can ask Gabriel about him.”

“Esther,” Raphael hissed, a dark, warning tone. 

“ _ A servant girl came to him. ‘You also were with Jesus of Gallilee,’ she said. But he denied it before them all. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said. _ ” Esther read the passage like a scholar, peering down her nose at the text through her glasses and Aziraphale’s throat tightened, his guts twisted, he knew what he was about to hear but didn’t want to hear it. He could ignore it if he just didn’t hear it. 

“Our fucking  _ daughter _ , Raph!” Esther was suddenly shouting, poison in her voice and murder in her eyes. “Our  _ baby,  _ who is  _ missing! _ ”

“Just fucking stop it, you don’t have to turn everything into a drama,” Raphael said.

“Have you had your fun with this? Did you enjoy people not knowing you as the angel who fucked a demon?”

“It was ordained,” Raphael said tightly.

“Oh, yes, I recall what you said at the time.  _ Oh, Esther, _ ” she moaned obscenely. “ _ That feels so ordained. _ ”

“Can you turn it down for just five minutes?”

“Or was it part of this… this…” Esther gestured wildly at Aziraphale. “... this ghastly pantomime of saving me?”

“Oh, that’s a bit high and mighty coming from you, like you aren’t trying to get a replica set of my balls for your mantlepiece.”

Aziraphale could see Eve again, in this space, he could see that thick, wavy hair, probably as long as Crowley had worn it way back when. He’d missed it, when things changed between them, had thought back to how he might have run tender fingers through that hair. Now he could see it in rich blonde, and he was so sure he’d done it, stroked and brushed and twisted that unruly hair, helped her get it sitting just so, slid in those jewelled hair pins to stay with her, so when they parted she had precious little gifts to keep his love safe with her. With Crowley he’d wasted millenia, but with his daughter he knew he’d cherished her from the start. 

Raphael and Esther were shouting, but above them Aziraphale heard a ringing, a buzzing, a pulse in his ears, blood in his veins, the machinery of his body. The noises inside his head and the noises coming from all around him clashed together, a cacophony that made his skull feel too small for his brain when all he wanted to do was think about that little girl who must have clung to nanny’s skirts as a child. 

“Enough!” Aziraphale cut through the argument around him, surprising both parties into silence. He cast a frowning glance between them, both flushed with anger and indignation. “Just shut up, both of you. If this is what it’s all been about I don’t wonder why Eve left.”

He stared at them, the shocked, blank looks, a long moment of silence hanging between the four of them, until he simply couldn’t bear it anymore. 

His feet led him away, up the stairs, back to that same stifling bedroom. Again and again, he had begun to hate this room which provided the only flimsy shelter he could find. The faded white door was the wardrobe shut tight in the darkness, poor protection against the monsters that hid behind it and yet the  _ snick _ of the latch was soothing. The only thing worse than this room was everything that lay behind that door.

A nightmare, a monster, a neverending flurry of blows that he was beginning to realise he couldn’t weather. 

He had known, he supposed, that he’d see Raphael’s feet of clay eventually. He just hadn’t expected it to be like this. It should have made him angry,  _ furious _ , that Raphael could think to preach to him about healthy relationships while frequently attempting to murder the mother of his child. He wasn’t angry. 

The pit of sadness that lived in him, his constant companion, gaped and yawned and threatened to swallow him whole. 

He had a daughter. Only he didn’t. But he did. He could have, it might have happened, just a little twist of fate way back when and that oh so human girl would have been his. Only that wasn’t the whole of it, was it? She would have been Crowley’s, too. If he imagined braiding her hair and introducing her to chocolate mousse and playing in the garden, he also had to imagine Crowley teaching her how to pull on pigtails and staying up past her bedtime and buying her tiny little sunglasses. 

It wasn’t them, nothing about them was suited to fatherhood, it wasn’t something he’d ever devoted a single thought to. And yet to have her, and know her, and have to grieve her loss so soon seemed the worst possible outcome. He could have learned how to be a parent. He could have lived in blissful ignorance for eternity. He didn’t think he could do  _ this _ . 

A knock on the door pierced his stupid, muddy brain. 

“Aziraphale.”

“I don’t want to talk to you, Raphael,” Aziraphale said, surprising himself with how much anger was left in his voice. He’d see the kindness in Raphael’s actions again, eventually, but not now. 

A pause, and then, “It’s Crowley.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale blinked at the closed door, holding a demon at bay, and didn’t know what to do. 

The decision was made for him, as Crowley took his silence for permission and the door creaked open. Crowley was uncomfortable in a way Aziraphale rarely saw, his shoulders hunched, a pained grimace etched onto his face. For once it felt unifying, the two of them witness to the spectacle downstairs rather than being a part of it themselves. It seemed rather than coming to check on him Crowley had elected to hide with him, also not wanting to deal with the others and their argument. 

“So all of that’s happening,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale managed a chuckle, but the pit in his chest stole it from him soon enough. He couldn’t find the words to tell Crowley everything that was welling up, the dam threatening to burst at any moment, and eventually, with quivering breath, he said the only thing he could: “We have a daughter, Crowley.”

Crowley sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“A little human one.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s going to destroy the world.”

“Looks like it.”

Aziraphale’s mouth was so downturned it almost hurt. He looked at his hands, then back to Crowley. What was there to say? Crowley had no more answers than he did. “What are we supposed to feel about this?”

“I don’t know, it’s all a mess, isn’t it?” He bit his lip, swaying this way and that. “Is it weird that I want them gone but I also kind of don’t?”

Another mirthless laugh escaped Aziraphale, bordering on hysterical. “Oh, oh, please tell me they won’t stay. Every time I think I see some good in them they just…”

“Yeah, I know.”

It was done, Aziraphale realised, for him. He’d extended himself as far as he could, if he kept pretending this wasn’t injuring him then the marks it left would be irreversible. 

And worse, so much worse, he realised that Raphael and Esther weren’t the problem. It wasn’t even Crowley. It was him. He’d hand crafted a life that never gave him a moment of peace, a moment to rest. He could send the lot of them packing right this instant and it wouldn’t make a whit of difference. He was the one who needed to change things. 

He realised that in this musty, suffocating little bedroom, stained with tears and spilled wine and dried sweat, six thousand years were about to come to an end. Armageddon in a dusty flat in Soho.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he breathed, the words out before he could stop them. 

“Get rid of them, then. I won’t stop you.”

“Not them. This. Us. I can’t… I don’t want to do this.”

Crowley’s face, his wonderfully expressive face, worked through a range of emotions, landing just shy of anger. “You can’t listen to that git after what you just saw, not even you, Aziraphale.”

“It’s not about him. Or it is, I don’t know. I don’t want to end up like them, do you? We can spend the rest of eternity sniping at each other, fighting, staying together because we’re used to it but I have to admit when I see it outside myself it’s rather ugly. I don’t want us to be them.”

Crowley swayed uncertainly, mouth pressed into a thin line and Aziraphale wished he would  _ speak _ . The momentum that had brought him this far was dribbling away like spilled wine and the reality of Crowley walking out of the shop and not coming back was looming. Every second that ticked by since he had said those words made them more real, made his choice harder. 

Something scrambled inside his chest, ripping and tearing, scrabbling to get out, to take back what he’d said, to beg Crowley to tell him it wasn’t necessary, that he had some brilliant plan to fix things, that his love had grown back overnight and that they should never talk about being apart ever again. It was huge inside him, monstrously strong, rushing through all his veins and he felt it could take over at any second, to speak with his mouth and grasp with his hands. 

A hundred times a day, Raphael had said, and this was the first.

“Yeah,” Crowley said, drawing the word out like he was weighing it carefully. “Alright.”

All the air left Aziraphale’s lungs in a rush, something filling him up that might have been decades of heartbreak or just a great, black void. Somehow he couldn’t have imagined a worse thing for Crowley to say. 

A tiny, stupid part of him had expected Crowley to fight him on it, to try to convince him that he still cared. And even if all he’d had were angry words and accusations, it would have meant he felt something. This resigned acceptance was the worst of it. It made the beast inside sink its claws in every tender place.

“Good. Good then,” Aziraphale managed to say, hoping Crowley would leave before he broke and begged him to stay, and hoping he would stay and give them precious moments more together. “I’m glad we… glad we…”

“Wasn’t your fault, Aziraphale,” Crowley said, his voice dark and confident in a way Aziraphale hadn’t heard for years. “This, or back then. You couldn’t have stopped any of it.”

“I hurt you.”

“Yep. Pretty bad.” Crowley rubbed his breastbone like an old war wound. 

“If I had just…”

“Yeah, prob’ly. And if I hadn’t taken us to Sandford it wouldn’t have happened, or gone to see Mel or done a hundred other things. It just worked out that way.”

“Don’t say that, please, don’t say that. I did a dreadful thing, leaving you alone like that, when you’d had the courage to speak up after all those years.”

“And I could have stormed off home, or the pub to get drunk, or, heaven forbid, actually talked to you about what was going on. You did your thing and I did mine, and Mel was there pushing our buttons to make it as bad as possible. It was a team effort.”

Aziraphale’s painful frown deepened, tears pricking at his eyes. If it was supposed to happen, if they never could have done anything else, what was he supposed to believe? 

Things came and went in his life, in the space between heartbeats whole cities rose and fell. Friends and lovers were impossible, even his books would crumble to dust and his bookshop would be paved over while he still had a long life to look forward to. This thing between them, in all its forms, was the only thing he’d been able to work on for his whole life. To cherish and nurture it and watch it grow, bear fruit, always constant, always changing. Considering a tomorrow without it was the most painful thing he’d ever done. And now he knew that this day had always been coming, barrelling towards him as he sat unaware. 

“We’ve dragged this out, haven’t we?” he asked, eyes fixed somewhere over Crowley’s shoulder. 

“Course we have. My bad penny, you are.”

“I think the feeling is mutual, my darling.”

Crowley’s smile was so close to genuine. “We’ve helped it along, now and then. If Heaven and Hell didn’t scare us into avoiding each other, I don’t think -  _ aah. _ ” 

Crowley cut himself off with a groan, a long-beloved grimace of exasperation falling over his face. 

“What? What is it?” Aziraphale asked. 

Crowley flicked a thumb over his lips, clicked his tongue. “Figured it out. I know where Eve is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	21. down into that deep abyss

Driving through the rose-filled streets of London at 90 miles an hour, Crowley’s eyes were blank on the fields of pale pink. He had a rogue Antichrist on the loose, the streets and skies going wild around him, and he’d lost Aziraphale. All he needed was a bookshop up in flames and it would be the end of the world over again. 

He didn’t tell Esther and Raph where he was going. He didn’t let Aziraphale come along. If his suspicions were right the last thing Eve needed was a full crowd of parents to confront her. 

He and Aziraphale weren’t like Raph and Esther, not in the nitty gritty details. Those two didn’t have midnight conspiracies or daring rescues or grand gestures, but there was just one point where they were exactly the same: they kept coming back to each other.

St James Park was empty, pale pink blanketing the grass like snow, the smaller plants now thorny rose bushes and the larger ones sprouting the flowers like exotic fruit. The petals swirled and eddied on the water, the night birds leaving black streaks across the lake with the paths they made. It was silent, just gentle breezes, flowing water, and the field of flowers. 

Eve sat on the bench, his bench, their bench, arms folded, eyes blank, a hellhound asleep at her feet. The flowers had sprouted in her lovely hair, and her dress didn’t look like it’d always been red and white and pink. A pomegranate charm hung around her neck, studded with rubies, and she’d painted on gold lipstick that wasn’t quite bright enough to be a mark of heaven. Aziraphale’s lovely blue eyes were lined with black and smudged with gold glitter, Crowley’s own nose wrinkled in consternation. 

She was ridiculous, an absurd combination of the two of them who had overdosed on roses, with the vague air of a cat who had managed to drop a pile of glitter on its head but was pretending it didn’t know who had been messing with the craft supplies. Crowley loved her immediately. 

He sat down, in his usual place, and his daughter looked down at her dog. “Go get mum and dad.”

The dog scrambled to its feet, licking a big stripe up the back of her hand before trotting off along the path. 

“How’s it all going, then?” Crowley asked.

A little  _ pfft _ of laughter escaped her lips, her chest jumping with it. She looked at him, really looked at him, and a smile settled on her face, self-deprecating, exhausted. “Give me your phone, will you?”

Crowley fished it out of his pocket and handed it over. She fiddled with it for a moment, the treacherous thing unlocking for her without complaint, and after a few taps she held it up at perfect selfie angle and hit the record button. 

“Hi, mum,” she said with a little wave. “I’m sorry to be here and gone like this, and I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to know you. I just wanted to tell you that I love you, and…” She paused, shook her head with a sad smile. “I love you. I promise I’ll think about you every day.”

With a little beep the message ended. Eve tugged a pin free of her hair, what had probably been a pomegranate but was now an enamel rose. She set the phone and the hairpin on the bench between them and gave them a little pat before crossing her arms again. “For when he’s ready. You know.”

Crowley nodded, letting her slump back, silent, watching the water again. He took her in, tracing the lines of her face with his eyes, again and again, the little expressions, the downturn of her lip, the crease of her eyes, the scrunch of her nose. A human. A very sad, fidgety human with a pink sparkly notebook clutched so tightly in one hand that her knuckles were turning white. 

“So what happened?” Crowley asked, because if he only got five minutes of being a dad, he’d at least be a decent one. 

“Figured it out,” she said. “You know, it, ending the world, rebuilding it. I… I figured it out, I think. It’s all just…” 

The weight of the world sat on her shoulders, crushing her. She wasn’t a child, she was in her thirties, an adult by any human standard, but Crowley could see the massive task and her overbearing parents keeping her young, never quite letting her come into her own. 

“You figured out all of human history?”

“Right?” She squeezed her notebook harder, then flipped it open in her hands. “I’m just that good. I’ve been looking at it all wrong, I’ve been…” She carded through the pages, chicken-scratch handwriting proudly declaring each page. _The Sunk Cost Fallacy. Tu Quoque. Confirmation Bias._ An encyclopedia of human foibles. “There are so many problems and I keep trying to whack-a-mole them, but I keep running up against more. They play off each other and multiply themselves and… and I figured it out, the great big truth behind everything.”

“Oh, please, go on.”

Eve sat back against the bench, quiet devastation in her frown and her tense hands. “We’re going to be okay.”

“That’s your big truth?” Crowley said, trying to gentle his tone, knowing who he was talking to.

“Does it seem anticlimactic?”

“A bit, yeah.”

“I guess it is, but it’s true. There’s no right answer. There’s nothing that’s  _ supposed to be _ at this point, that all ended when I turned eleven. We’re off-roading. I’ve been waiting for twenty years because I thought it wouldn’t be worth it if it wasn’t perfect but it doesn’t work like that. It’s going to be whatever we make of it. It’s not a paradise, it’s a chance.”

Crowley didn’t know what he was supposed to say. An argument might mean the survival of her world, but if he only had this one chance to talk to her he didn’t want to spend it arguing. He wanted to do whatever it would take to get that frown off her face, to uncross her arms and unslump her shoulders. He couldn’t leave his girl this miserable. 

“So if you’ve figured it all out, what’s the problem, then?”

“As soon as I pull the trigger the war starts,” Eve said, leaving it at that.

It clicked. “And Esther and Raph kill each other.”

She nodded with a smack of her lips. “Mmhmm.”

“I’m sorry, kid.”

“I don’t need fucking sorry, I need my parents. What the hell’s the point of trying to help everyone else if I can’t even keep my parents alive?”

Well, he hadn’t really been expecting the easy questions from this conversation. He was built to soothe human worries, but only in the worst way. He was the entire contents of that tacky notebook all pressed into one person, then sculpted to look like a man. It wouldn’t be doing any favours to tempt and wile away her worries. This was real and she was in the driver’s seat. The gains would be real, the losses would be so much more. 

“So, the plan is, you make them fall in love and then they agree not to kill each other.”

“The plan  _ was _ to find that stupid prophecy book and get some real guidance. Burned, in my world, and yours and I was running out of ideas until Adam told me about you two. But I’m too late for that, too, aren’t I? It’s all burned up.”

“Did you find it?” he asked.

“Find what?”

“My…” He made a sort of gesture, it felt too weird to say out loud. 

“Oh.” She cupped her hands together, clenched them like a magic trick and when she opened them a peony-pink light sat in the cage of her fingers. “I took it from Samael last week.”

Crowley laughed, partly at the idea of Samael having anything  _ taken  _ from her, and partly because they’d got it wrong. She’d had it all along. “How’d she like that?”

“She’s a piece of work.”

“Yeah, she is. So do you want to talk about the roses, or..?”

“It’s useless,” Eve said, staring at the light in her hands. “It doesn’t fit, you know, it’s got all this…” She huffed in frustration and spread her hands, the light inside them unspooling into stars and nebulae, a mist of connective tissue seeping out from it. She gestured at it. “Look at this. What am I supposed to connect it to? I might as well duct tape a hard drive to the side of my computer and expect it to work.”

Crowley groaned, seeing where the mistake had happened. “So you tried to pull more of it out.”

“If I can get this stupid thing I should be able to get its anchors, too, shouldn’t I? Trust, understanding, respect, generosity, I… my parents…” 

“They don’t have any of them, your parents are prats. They’ve got right here, don’t they? Isn’t this place good enough to jam it in?” Crowley spread his hands across the bench, the park. Right here, where his bad penny always came back to him. The thinnest veil of plausible deniability for wanting to spend time together. A placeholder for years on years of just accidentally finding each other. A weird sort of promise to always come back to each other, even if only for a briefing and a stiff handshake.

Eve shook her head. “If obsession is the only anchor for this, it’s going to get ugly.”

She made her funny little gestures, the same ones he was prone to, and Aziraphale, and Raphael and Esther, learned mannerisms from years of conversations. Fingers worrying the sympathy she hadn’t been able to pull out of Quarrendon, the generosity from the Globe, desire at the Bastille and friendship at the bookshop and all the rest of the stuff he’d spent his long life building. It wasn’t a wall, he saw, that stopped him from loving Aziraphale, he just kept running out of track, the circuit wasn’t complete. 

“They don’t need it,” Crowley said. “You know trying to make them love each other is… icky.”

“I don’t care. I want them to love each other, so they  _ will _ ,” she said with the certainty of someone who could bend reality to her wishes. The little burst of anger didn’t last long. “Won’t they? They have to, I have to find some way, if this didn’t work, there’s got to be a way.”

“Come on, kid, this isn’t going to end well.”

“It’s better than them killing each other!” 

“You don’t have to do any of it, if you don’t want to. Could just let the humans keep on, like they always have. You said it yourself, they’ll be alright, one way or another.”

Eve’s lip wobbled dangerously. “So I can choose the people I have the power to help or my parents.”

Crowley wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she came to him, curling up against his chest. He wanted to tell her none of it was her responsibility, but it wasn’t the time for lies. These decisions were above his pay grade and he had no skin in the game. He had no good advice, just a bundle of love in his chest and in Eve’s hands, and no stakes seemed to be bigger than the tears that welled up in her eyes. He cursed and blessed all the bastards above and below for putting this on her. 

Eve dabbed delicately at her eyes and he didn’t have the heart to tell her that her eye makeup was a lost cause. 

“You don’t need this,” Crowley said, nodding to the love unspooled in her hands. “You don’t need games or magic, just talk to them. They’ll never love each other, but they love you. A sickening amount.”

Eve eyed him doubtfully. “They hate each other more.”

Did Aziraphale love him or fear Heaven more? He’d been so certain he knew the answer he never stopped to ask the question. He smiled, his heart swelling for this human, this flawed and furious creature that some other version of himself had made. He had a chance to pass on just this one thing, to stop her making his same mistake. “No, they don’t.”

The wet thump of Crumpet galloping back through the rose petals reached them, and both of them turned, breaking apart. Esther and Raph would follow soon, they’d take Eve home. 

Eve sniffled and dabbed at her eyes. “So do you want this back, or do I have to see Samael again?”

Crowley felt the colour drain from his face, time slowing to a crawl. He hadn’t thought about it, he hadn’t even thought, it hadn’t occurred to him that she might give it back. It was hers. He could tell her to keep it, the same way she’d left a hairpin for Aziraphale. Keep it with her always, her parents’ love, like she deserved. 

He had a chance now, he knew, a chance to start something, maybe something great. Aziraphale didn’t want him anymore, it was over. If he wasn’t running the same incomplete racetrack every day he could try again, start from scratch, build up all those stars inside himself again for something new. What an ex-demon he would be, with his generosity directed at humans and his admiration toward art and his trust in… he didn’t even know. He’d find something. It wasn’t a paradise, it was a chance.

Or he could pull roses out of the world trying to find somewhere to connect all the wires again. He hadn’t been good back then, he’d never been good, but if there had been one place he’d concentrated the best of himself over the years, it was sitting in his daughter’s hands. 

It had been hard, and good, the good stuff. Cracking himself open even a little had been difficult after the Fall, it left him frightened of Heaven and vulnerable to Hell, any little wisp of sweetness he let out of himself was liable to sicken and poison and die before his eyes. It was terrifying. Twenty years ago in a house in Sandford he thought he couldn’t bear to be alone with that pain, that cracked open feeling. 

He’d been so hurt and scared he’d forgotten the other side of it. Releasing the good things and watching them caught by Aziraphale’s gentle hands, any honest telling of his thoughts or wants or needs. A favour for a smile, an opinion for a laugh, mischief for fond scoldings. No angel had ever made those parts of him he was proud of, but one of them had made them something he could act on instead of mulling them over in his head, paralysed with fear and shame. The best of himself growing like weeds outside of him, sinking into everything around him, the threads that connected him, the world, and Aziraphale. 

An impossible decision, with no way to know the outcome, that he had to make in the time it took a doberman to launch itself across St James Park. 

_ We’re going to be okay. _

“What are you going to do?” Crowley asked. 

Eve smiled softly. “I don’t know. I think I’ll start by talking to my parents.”

Good kid. “Love you.”

“Love you, too, dad.”

Crowley’s eyes burned, his breath all catching in his throat, and he knew letting her go wasn’t the same as forgetting her. That was the big mistake, the forgetting, it was different to moving on.

“I want it back.”

Eve nodded, solemn. She was a mess, teary, scattered, swamped by roses in the soft pink glow, and he recognised the miracle that made her. He and Aziraphale had made peonies, had made that pink light, love and freedom. Somewhere else they’d made her instead, the best of them. Miracles Heaven and Hell could never achieve. It had been all them. She was unimaginably wonderful as she raised her hand to his chest and he started to choke. 

Crowley sagged back against the bench, blood rushing back into muscles that had been atrophying for twenty years. It wasn’t pain, exactly, but pressure, in the way a hurricane is wind. His head lolled back when he couldn’t support it, spots bursting in front of his eyes. The only part of him that could move was his heaving chest, trying to choke down air, push out pain. It all spread and bloomed and  _ burned. _

His vision blurred, the world jumping around him with each wave of pulsing, crushing pressure. The wind blew a torrent of rose petals around him. He heard Crumpet leap onto Eve. He blinked heavily, trying to move. It took all his strength to lift his head, his arms and legs felt like they were made of lead. He had feeling in his hands again, where there had only been pins and needles before.

The world moved around him in skips and jumps, flashes of distorted images. He saw Esther and Raph embrace Eve, the three of them holding each other tight, smothering themselves, not seeming to care who was holding who. He heard Esther’s sobs like he was underwater. 

He must have blacked out.

Esther was standing over him, indulgent smile on her face, eyes red and puffy. Bloody hell, she was lovely. “It would never have worked between us, darling. You’re too much like my ex.”

Crowley laughed, the sound hacked up through his chest, his arms pinned to the bench at his sides. He kissed the fingertips pressed to his lips.

The roses swirled around him, his eyes catching nothing but blurs of pink and black, the flash of stars in between. His head was going to explode, his skull was crushing his brain. Thank whoever he didn’t need to breathe. He was too hot, his heart burning like a sun in his chest, sweat breaking out on his forehead. 

Raphael’s gold eyes were watching him. At the mercy of an archangel.

“She’s… right… about you,” Crowley gasped. 

Raphael grinned, bit his lip, shook his head. “This is the hard part. As soon as he knows he’s safe to fall apart, all bets are off. Love him like he is now, don’t try to force him back to how he was.” The archangel leaned in, gold-bedded fingers curling around Crowley’s shoulder, to hiss in his ear. “And if you make this about you, and how guilty you feel, I’ll find my way back here and show you how right she is.”

Crowley tried to laugh again but the muscles in his chest and belly were spasming. He was pretty sure he was having a seizure. He couldn’t keep his eyes open, he couldn’t move, couldn’t even claim the few ragged breaths he’d been getting before. Voices were floating around him, distant and fuzzy, kisses were pressed to his face and lips, and all he could do was lie still and try not to panic. 

At some point the voices were gone, the hands, and he could hear the silence in the world outside and the pulse in his own ears, he could feel the frozen night air and the blood pooling in his joints, and he saw Aziraphale’s smile behind his eyes just before it all became too much and he felt nothing at all, passed out alone on a bench in St James Park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your essay on this chapter is worth 40% of your final grade. 
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	22. I saw it then, for before I had not seen it

Crowley sat in the Bentley, engine off, outside the bookshop. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, an anchor for him, some bracing point to hold him upright. He hadn’t been thinking when he came to, hours or days later, when he climbed into his car and let it take him home, his brain had been all white noise and emptiness. But then the engine wound down and left him in silence and darkness, and his brain started to spark back to life. 

_Don’t use the kissy voice on me, angel, you know it doesn’t work anymore._

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” Crowley moaned, gripped the wheel harder until the veins in his wrists were raised, and keened at the back of his throat. What had he said? What had he _said?_ His memory was near perfect but he couldn’t remember every offhanded comment he made. It had all been offhand, hadn’t it? He’d never meant to hurt Aziraphale, he hadn’t cared enough to mean it. Hadn’t even noticed. 

After two decades he could finally feel it again, how Aziraphale’s soft, silly, quirkiness made fireworks go off in his chest, and he’d spent two decades trying to bludgeon all of it out of him. They’d traded barbs since time began, but he’d meant it this time, every word, and Aziraphale knew it. 

What was he supposed to do? Ask for forgiveness? _Oh, angel, I know I’ve been beating you down for decades now but I’ve decided I love you again, so that’s all in the past._

He thought of broken teacups, the videos he liked to watch on Facebook of people mending them with gold shot through, or covering up chips with pretty aluminium designs, or the ones who used masking tape and milk to make it so the cracks didn’t even show anymore. He was standing over his own teacup that he’d smashed in a tantrum and he didn’t even know if he could find all the pieces, or if he had any right to try. He thought of writing to those clever Facebook people: What do you do with a teacup you’ve spent years breaking? One you smashed to bits, then hunted down all the bigger bits to smash them again? Will the pattern ever sit right again?

Crowley wiped at his eyes. He couldn’t cry. At his flat he could cry, and he would, he had plenty of time for that. Raphael was a pretentious, hypocritical dickhead, but he was right, this couldn’t be about him. 

He had to see Aziraphale. 

Crowley sniffed, jammed a pair of sunglasses onto his face and stepped out of the car before he could talk himself out of it. The street was dark and silent, the bookshop windows were dim. 

Crowley took a deep breath and pushed through the door. 

He had to remind himself not to cry. Fifteen years, fifteen fucking years he’d been walking through this door and he hadn’t noticed anything wrong. The whole place was grey, covered in a thick layer of dust. Not Aziraphale’s usual casual approach to cleaning, but undisturbed for years. A tomb. When was the last time he opened the shop? When was the last time he touched his own books? Crowley’s stomach clenched painfully. The smell of Esther’s cigarettes hung in the air and for a heartbeat it was all too much. Smoke and ash. A burnt out bookshop. 

The light from a single lamp led him across the floor, over the heaven rug, the air so thick with dust it glowed like a lighthouse in fog. Crowley wanted to see and he didn’t want to see. His mind conjured up horror stories to tell him about what else he might not have noticed. He wanted to see Aziraphale, _his_ Aziraphale, the part that had been cut out of him, the excruciatingly adorable angel who was sometimes just excruciating. He wanted to walk around that corner and find him practising magic, a supremely pleased smile and a curly moustache on his face as he brandished a rabbit at an unfortunate audience. Or just after a particular favour, when his smile was blinding. Or that coquettish little pout when he was being flirty. 

Crowley’s feet led him, one step, then another, then another, and the light glowed brighter. He steeled himself. He wouldn’t cry in front of Aziraphale, or whine, or throw himself on his knees and beg forgiveness like it would fix everything. 

Aziraphale sat in his armchair, eyes unfocussed, glass of wine dangling half-finished and forgotten in his hand. He hadn’t even heard the door open. His lovely round cheeks were sickly hollows, his comfortable body that moulded to every soft surface now thin and old. Bright, beautiful Aziraphale was grey, sapped of all colour, not breathing, not moving.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley whispered. Aziraphale didn’t move, didn’t give any indication he’d noticed Crowley was there.

Crowley nearly ran. His body wanted to, tensed to stride out the door and never look back. He’d done this. Six thousand years of thinking he wasn’t such a bad demon, blaming Heaven for giving the lot of them a bad name, thinking he’d just been asking questions, and then he’d gone and done this. He had to go, he had to leave, before he did or said or even thought anything else that might hurt Aziraphale. This was unforgivable. The only thing that he could do worse was to run away and leave Aziraphale here to deal with it on his own without even trying to help.

“Aziraphale,” he said, louder this time, and Aziraphale startled to life.

“Oh,” the angel said, even his voice an exhausted shadow. “Crowley. What’s happened? I haven’t heard anything from Raphael.”

“They’re gone,” Crowley said, not knowing what to say. How could he explain any of this? “Took Eve home, I think. She’s been working through some stuff.”

Aziraphale’s face fell ( _how could it fall more?_ ) and Crowley nearly cracked. Raphael was gone, without so much as a goodbye. He knew why, knew Eve needed Raph’s attention and sticking around would just muddy things here, but he still hated the git for disappointing Aziraphale. 

_He’s me, angel, he was always going to let you down._

Aziraphale’s face drew into a tight, fake smile and he gave a short nod, a parody of putting on a brave face. Like he was trying to imitate someone at the office hearing the last donut had been eaten. “Of course. Thank you for letting me know.”

“M’sorry,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale’s eyes flicked to him warily. “It’s no matter. I’m sure he had his reasons.”

Crowley needed to tell him. He needed to just spit it out, he couldn’t keep just standing here, listening to that distant tone, watching him hide behind politeness because he didn’t know he was safe yet. He needed to just _say it,_ but every way he jammed the words together in his head turned them into some self-serving plea for forgiveness. 

“I saw Eve,” he blurted, hoping the next sentence would occur to him once he’d said that part. “Talked to her. She called me dad.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes. “And did she manage to make them fall in love?”

“No,” Crowley said. “She gave it back to me instead.”

Aziraphale was already so still, only breathing enough to speak, that he couldn’t have frozen. The only sign he’d heard anything at all was his silence, his face wracked, a mannequin of himself as Crowley stood back and let him absorb it. 

Crowley’s mind spun more stories for him as he waited for the reaction. It told him he was about to have the angel back in his arms, crushing him against his chest, kissing him senseless, candyfluff hair and bluebell eyes and thousands of thwarted years dissolving behind them. It told him he should prepare himself for an avenging angel, angry recriminations shouted into the dead air, books thrown at his head and all his sins about to be brought into the light. 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said finally. “I didn’t want this for you, I wanted to respect your choice. Maybe if you asked Mephistopheles…”

“Angel,” Crowley cut him off before he could finish trying to tear his heart clean out. “I asked her to give it back.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, with the air of someone finding out it was going to rain tomorrow or an appointment had been pushed back a few hours. _Oh, thank you for letting me know._ His eyes were vacant, staring somewhere in the middle distance, his face slack. 

Crowley watched him, waiting for it to sink in, his heart beating strangely in his chest and bile rising in his throat. But it didn’t seem to be sinking in at all, sitting like slick black oil on still waters. Aziraphale wasn’t thinking it through, it took Crowley too long to realise, the lights were just barely on but nobody was home. He wanted to do something really stupid, spit poison and beat himself about the head for being so fucking _stupid_ as to think Aziraphale could handle this shock after the week they’d just had. But he wasn’t going to do that. Partly because it would just frighten and upset his angel all over again, and partly because what choice did he have except telling him? 

So what the _fuck_ was he supposed to do now? Had Raphael really seen all this, what was going on, and only paused to give him ten seconds of advice on how to fix it? It all welled up in his chest, threatened to spill from his eyes, this was _too much._ The problem was colossal, the solutions hidden in a minefield. He was hurting and Aziraphale was hurting and watching Aziraphale hurt only hurt him over again, he didn’t think he could stand another second of it, something frantic inside him wanting to just _do something_ to fix it all. 

He crouched down beside Aziraphale, trying not to see the cracks that ran through him like crumbling mortar but still looking for them obsessively, the dirt under his fingernails, the rumple in his shirt collar, the papery skin stretched tight over his knuckles and wrists. Crowley reached forward gently, aiming to take Aziraphale’s hands in his own. 

Aziraphale flinched away, his eyes snapping back into focus, the wine sloshing from his glass to stain his trousers pomegranate red. Crowley swallowed the stab of pain. Aziraphale was staring right at him like he didn’t know him, those beloved eyes bewildered and frightened. Like Crowley was playing some kind of cruel trick on him. 

“‘Ziraphale…” he tried, not sure what to say, raking through a hundred grand declarations to see if there was something small and comforting he could say right now and finding nothing. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, ever so politely. “I’m not… I should…” He dabbed at the stain with his fingers, looking around as if a cloth would magically appear and seeming to forget he could make one appear.

Crowley snapped his fingers and the stain vanished. Aziraphale wouldn’t look at him, still glancing around, looking for an answer Crowley couldn’t find either. 

“Do you think you could sober up?” Crowley asked, still going for gentle. The booze couldn’t be helping. 

“No, I…” Aziraphale lurched to his feet, holding himself up on the back of his chair. “I think I need a lie down.”

Crowley straightened, reaching out again to steady Aziraphale with a hand on his elbow. He didn’t object this time, patting Crowley’s shoulder as he stumbled toward the stairs. 

“Let me help,” Crowley said. This was alright. Probably? He let himself think back, he had to think, he had to face it and remember. Aziraphale getting lost in thought, going still and vacant, his forgetfulness and his wandering mind, it kept coming and going. It was his coping mechanism, Crowley realised, when it all became too much. He’d shut down and hide in whatever kind of sanctuary he’d made of his bedroom. He felt safe there, and he was safe, Crowley needed him to believe he was safe. 

It was easy enough to coax Aziraphale up the stairs in his dazed state, keeping a hold of him so he didn’t trip. This was worse than he’d seen it before. It was usually just a few seconds, or minutes if he didn’t step in. Or… or maybe longer, when Crowley wasn’t around. It might have been going on for years, episodes this severe, and he just hadn’t bothered to notice it. Raphael had said it was going to get bad, so he had to be able to deal with bad. 

He was determined to prove he was strong enough for this, that he could support Aziraphale through without letting his own desperate need to cry get in the way. The stubbornness held up well enough until he opened the door to Aziraphale’s bedroom. 

_Jesus fucking Christ, fuck,_ he didn’t say, managing to bite down on it so only a strangled little whimper came out. 

He’d _been in this room._ He’d had his fucking nose pressed into that mattress often enough in the past fifteen years (Aziraphale knew the score, he’d agreed knowing everything, it was consent, it was consent) and he’d managed to miss fucking everything.

 _Trying to cover the whole shop in tartan?_ He’d been lying naked on the bed, lounging about like a git, ignoring the fact that Aziraphale had clearly been faking his finish only a minute ago.

 _Tartan is stylish,_ Aziraphale had teased.

 _It’s really not._ He hadn’t been teasing back. Aziraphale’s face had fallen and he’d ignored it. That must have been when the tartan bedspread went. Some other stupid, thoughtless remarks about the books he was reading probably did in the ones on the nightstand. Had he said anything about the curtains? The painting he was sure used to be there? He must have. 

The room, as it stood, was bare, somewhere between a hospital bed and a motel room. Blank walls, plain cream bedspread, plain wooden furniture, no books, no art, no empty teacups on the nightstands or pretty coloured lampshades. No, not a hospital or a motel, Crowley thought, a prison. Only in prisons they didn’t let empty wine bottles collect beside the bed, and he hoped the air was fresher. 

Crowley looked around him, trying to fix things with his mind as he went. It was easy enough to banish the wine bottles and imagine a decent vent into existence, but he didn’t know what to do about the rest. Raphael had told him to love Aziraphale as he was now, it wouldn’t be right to just slap a layer of tartan on everything and call it mended. 

Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice. He turned down the blank duvet and pulled out of Crowley’s grasp to sit on the side of the bed. “Oh, thank you, my dear. I’m sure I can… can…”

Crowley knelt beside the bed, putting himself at Aziraphale’s side but not reaching out. He watched Aziraphale’s confused face, his shaking hands, the hunch of his shoulders, and he loved him so completely. Anything to make it better, even just for a little while. 

Maybe it was crass, he thought, but he knew what comfort looked like. He nudged Aziraphale’s knee with his nose and the stiff clothing turned into soft flannel pyjamas, the kind that had been worn into wooly perfection. Aziraphale glanced down in surprise, then tugged experimentally at the cuffs of the sleeves, his face relaxing the tiniest bit, a little awareness bubbling to the surface. 

“Lie down, angel,” Crowley said. Aziraphale obeyed, watching him warily as he tucked his feet under the covers and shuffled down. 

The little success perked Crowley up enough to try again, trusting his instincts. He knew how to make Aziraphale happy. A little pampering, a little anticipating, just matching soft things to soft things so they light up like a slot machine. 

It was hard to resist forcing the tartan throw rug back into its rightful place, but Crowley decided on the next best thing. He pulled a black mohair blanket into the room, settling it across the bed, so Aziraphale could feel the warmth of it, look down and see Crowley was protecting him in his sleep. He put a glass of water on the nightstand for good measure, to help with the awful hangover the angel was insisting on giving himself.

“What does this mean, Crowley?” Aziraphale asked, voice small. 

“Means I love you,” Crowley said. “And I’m sorry for all of it.”

Aziraphale was silent and Crowley sat down, leaning back against the bed, letting his head loll on the black blanket. It was the quiet sniffling that let him know Aziraphale had heard him, and it quickly escalated into hiccuping sobs, the blankets bunching as the angel buried his face in them, trying to stifle the sound. 

He didn’t say it back and Crowley sagged with relief. He couldn’t bear hearing it right now, if he’d ever hear it, not when it would just be forced. If Aziraphale’s feelings for him were only complicated he’d consider it a gift, but they were probably more like a tangled web of frustrated hopes and realised nightmares. He hadn’t come this far just to try to rush it now. Even if the angel could never love him again he had to at least try to be here for this part, see if he could set a few broken bones so they healed right. 

They didn’t move, didn’t speak, Aziraphale’s cries were the only sound. Crowley didn’t push his luck - he let the angel cry, he’d earned it. He’d get his own chance to cry, soon, but for this moment he was going to shut his mouth and listen. He’d sit here, the guard dog at the foot of the bed, just in case Aziraphale needed anything during the night, and know that he was the luckiest bastard alive for it.

* * *

Thank you to [JoulesBurn](https://https://crowleymowley.tumblr.com/) for her gorgeous art of this chapter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I haven't been answering comments, but I haven't wanted to disturb the conversation everyone is having or spoil anything for anyone. You guys mean the world to me and you're fueling this story, which I would have given up on ages ago without you. 
> 
> You can always catch me over on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	23. upon the outer surface only

Aziraphale slept, dreams and nightmares blooming into shapeless apparitions in his mind, here shaking him with fear, here driving him to anger, and never solid enough that he could remember why when he opened his eyes. He found the blankets clutched tight in his hands more often than not. He’d slip back to sleep, then slip into wakefulness again, and he’d cry himself sick. 

The world around him seemed almost as shapeless as his dreams. He’d open his eyes to the pale light of morning, blink and find it midday, blink again for nighttime, and always the room shifted and changed with the hours. In the early morning Crowley’s gentle hands helped him drink a glass of water while he was trembling too badly to hold it. Then the glass was gone, Crowley was gone, a copy of  _ The Happy Prince _ sat on his nightstand next to a plate of sticky danishes, another blink and the danishes had turned into hot cocoa and the bed was stacked high with pillows, Crowley watching him from the floor beside the bed. Aziraphale didn’t take any of the offerings, he curled further into the blankets and cried until he slept again. 

He was sick of crying. He was so sick of it that it seemed to push all other emotions to the back of his mind, his thoughts almost entirely taken up by how all he seemed to do was cry and whine and frown and cry some more. His eyes and throat hurt, his hands hurt from how tightly he clenched them and his back ached from bowing his spine so often. It would overwhelm him so much that he thought anything would be better, literally anything that wasn’t lying in this bed weeping. Except then he would focus on something he might do, like take the mug of cocoa, and he would find he simply couldn’t, and that would make him cry and curl and tremble all over again. 

It might be nice, he thought, staring at the side table, the copy of  _ Gulliver’s Travels  _ and the artful plate of sushi that had appeared there, to reach out and take them. But it wasn’t worth it. He felt he could spend forever in this bed, eating snacks and reading books, after a hundred years he might even start feeling better - long, long after Crowley had become tired of playing nursemaid to an uninjured man. If he woke up enough to want those things it would soon follow that he ought to get out of bed, get dressed and go back to being the partner Crowley wanted and deserved. The weight of expectations for witty conversation and playful teasing, a companion for operas and art galleries, a partner to help scratch where their bodies sometimes itched, it was impossible, the barrier insurmountable. Just the thought sucked all the energy out of him, killed any urge he had to reach for that comfort, and sent him back to tears or to sleep. 

It was dark out when he felt a hand shake him awake, pulling him from the shadows of a nightmare that gummed up his mind and rendered his hands into gnarled claws, tearing at the blanket. 

“Angel, angel, I’m here. Wake up, I’m right here,” Crowley murmured in the dark. 

Aziraphale sucked in a breath, sure he had stopped breathing in his sleep. He looked around, disoriented. “What? What is it?”

“You were having a nightmare.”

“Oh.” He had been. He was sweating, shaking, abusing this poor black blanket that Crowley had given him. It didn’t quite leave him on waking, the way they usually did, a spectre of fear and pain remaining. 

Crowley stood over him in the dark, light barely catching on yellow eyes, his face open with worry. He wasn’t tired of it yet, he wasn’t worn down, he was concerned. Aziraphale tried to calm his breathing, his heart, but his body didn’t seem to want to cooperate. 

When Crowley tried to move his hand away Aziraphale grabbed it without thinking. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it, to take a little of what was on offer? While it was there? Eventually Crowley would decide, like the first time, that it wasn’t worth it, and the comfort he offered would cool and sour and turn hard, but  _ oh _ , Aziraphale wanted this just for a little while. 

“I’m here,” Crowley whispered, threading his fingers through Aziraphale’s. He sunk to his knees beside the bed, his long arms resting on the blankets, and held fast. 

It hurt. It helped and it hurt, or it hurt because it helped. Like after a long day on his feet when he didn’t realise he was in pain until he sat down and took off his shoes. Crowley kept holding on, lovely eyes wide with worry. 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale managed to say, because maybe if Crowley knew he was trying he might stay a little longer. “I don’t mean to be like this.”

“Don’t say that. After all this you get to just be in bed. Leave the rest to me.” Crowley’s lovely warm hand was squeezing his like he was trying to prove how firm the anchor stood, holding Aziraphale to shore. 

“You must be miserable taking care of me like this.”

Crowley gave him a watery quirk of his lips, squeezed his hand again. “I nearly lost my best friend again. M’not miserable at all. Still got you, right here. I couldn’t be happier.”

If this could just last forever, the darkness, the warmth, holding Crowley’s hand, Aziraphale thought he might be happy. 

“Crowley, would you…” Aziraphale’s voice died in his throat.  _ The kissy voice. _ He wanted Crowley to stay, just until he fell asleep. He had almost asked him as much in that whine, the one he hated, one of the countless things that had driven him away before. 

Aziraphale bit down on the inside of his cheek as the shaking started. Mercifully, there were no tears, just a quivering in all his limbs, a trembling in his lips that he couldn’t stop. He curled in again, hiding his face in the blankets, pulling his knees toward his chest, trying to stop his body from shaking apart. 

“Angel. Angel!” Crowley lurched closer to him, squeezing his hand. “Stay with me. What do you need? Anything, ask me for anything.”

Aziraphale didn’t ask, he couldn’t, his body wouldn’t let him and his brain knew better. He just huddled into the blankets and hoped his heart wouldn’t give out as it bounced around his chest, insisting his corporation was dying around him. 

“Can I touch you?” Crowley asked. 

He nodded. He wanted that, even though he shouldn’t. There was a heart-thumping dip to the bed beside him and then Crowley’s hands were on him, all but dragging him into the demon’s arms. Aziraphale forceded the seizing muscles of his arms free of the bedding and wrapped them, crushing, around Crowley’s ribs. 

Crowley was still a slip of a thing but he felt so big, encompassing and sheltering, arms strong and hands attentive. One long-fingered hand stroked his back, the other obsessively smoothing his hair. Something in his chest, something keeping all his muscles iron hard and high strung, unfurled as Crowley held him. It felt so good that Aziraphale might have wept if there were any tears left in him. 

He held fast, his face buried in Crowley’s chest. A calm swept through him, the sort of feeling he’d forgotten could live in his body, and the trembling slowed, slowed, and stopped, the only movement the gentle rocking of their bodies. Aziraphale wanted to live in this place forever. If he could freeze time, he would, he’d keep them there, warm and safe and in love, never even thinking of tomorrow and the inevitable creeping drain on Crowley’s patience. 

“Do you want me to stay?” Crowley mumbled into his hair. 

Aziraphale nodded. They’d never done this before. A little, in Sandford, the night they first made love. Aziraphale had sprawled over Crowley’s chest, pressing happy kisses into his sternum, trading jokes and smiles. They’d never held each other like this, though, they’d never been able to take comfort in each other, not once in all their time on Earth. Aziraphale hadn’t known it could feel like this.

Crowley stayed with him until his breathing was even and his eyes were heavy and even then didn’t move away. The rhythm of it was comforting, breathing in and out together, heartbeats aligning, their bodies mimicking the closeness with their deep internal cadence.

Aziraphale drifted off again, tired but a restful tired instead of deadened exhaustion. He felt Crowley’s heartbeat beneath his cheek even in his sleep, the bones of his forearms where they held him tight. He floated close enough to the surface that occasionally he would break through, just enough to realise he was drooling on Crowley’s shirt, or to feel kisses in his hair, to hear the rumble of soft snores in Crowley’s chest. 

He dreamed of loving, of being in love, of a motel room and being sprawled, naked and happy, across Crowley’s chest, laughing. He was watching from the outside, a ghost of himself, knowing what was coming. A shouted warning might reach the happy lovers, he thought, but he didn’t know if he should warn them to savour it more or abandon it completely, knowing how fragile the moment and how, once shattered, the edges would cut like jagged glass. He did neither, standing helpless, choking on his fear. 

When he woke in the morning he was alone in bed. The sheets were still warm and smelled of Crowley. Aziraphale smacked his lips, realising his mouth was dry and tacky, it had been days since he’d eaten or drank or brushed his teeth. 

Time had taken back on some of its more regular qualities, if only a little. The sleep had refreshed something in him that hadn’t been fresh for some time. The world had lost the faded, soft quality it had taken on and he was back in it, for better or worse. 

With leaden limbs he pushed the blankets back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He could miracle his mouth clean but things tended to feel more thorough when done the human way. 

He shuffled to the little ensuite he’d always thought he ought to have and took in the too-real sensations of cold tile under his feet, plastic in his hands, polyester bristles against his teeth, and, after a herculean effort, smooth, minty teeth under his tongue. It felt like an achievement. To him, an angel who had moved the course of history. What a wretched creature stared at him in the mirror. 

It was quite enough activity to exhaust him again. He crawled back into bed, hands buried in his black blanket, and ruminated on the dream that wasn’t over yet. There was a choice to be made and either option seemed unspeakably cruel. 

He could now do one of two things: he could send Crowley away or ask him to stay. In the first he would be cutting off Crowley just as he was in the blush of love restored, leaving him untethered and drifting, questioning and mourning for a long time, perhaps all of time. In the second he would give that love time to erode and sicken, saving Crowley from that uncertainty by letting him stay long enough to remember why he’d left in the first place, putting himself through that trauma all over again. It seemed that no option would spare both of them. 

He clutched the blankets to his chest and stared at the wall, mind slipping away again. It would be healthy, he thought, in Raphael’s eyes, to take the option to spare himself. To just tell Crowley he’d made his decision and their discussion from the night of Eve’s departure still held. It would be painful, and there would always be lingering doubts, but it was the only way to forgive himself, wasn’t it? That had been Raphael’s core demand, that he stop paying penance, stop taking out his mistakes on his own body and allow himself to let go. But what was he sparing himself that would be worse than the expression on Crowley’s face if he asked him to leave? It didn’t matter if he took it with devastation or bravado, Aziraphale was sure it would kill him. 

The door cracked open, breaking up his spiralling thoughts. Aziraphale looked up as Crowley sidled through the door, and his heart cracked at the soft smile on his face. 

“Look who’s awake,” Crowley said. “Thought you’d be out for the rest of the week.”

He set down a large book on the nightstand and a glistening crystal cup filled with colourful sorbet and topped with a sprig of mint. 

“How long did I sleep?” Aziraphale asked, voice hoarse from disuse.

“Three days this time, you’re going to break my record if I’m not careful.” Crowley knelt beside the bed and reached for him, fingertips tracing his hairline and slipping down to cradle his jaw. “How are you feeling?”

Could he just keep this forever? The light touch, the gentle eyes? If he had it for another thousand years he was sure he could get out of bed. 

He fumbled for words to answer the question. How did he feel? Awful. Cold on his nose and hot on his feet, tight in his chest, loose in his muscles, nauseated and unwashed, a different horrid sensation for every part of him. But he couldn’t say that. This was the problem, this has been the problem from the start, Aziraphale inventing problems that weren’t there and then dragging Crowley along to tilt at his windmills. There was  _ nothing wrong. _ He’d gotten exactly what he wanted. 

“Better,” he said, the lie bitter on his tongue. “I’m sure I’ll be up and about in no time, it’s all just been a bit of a shock.”

“That’s putting it lightly.” Crowley cupped his face and frowned, words forming and unravelling on his lips until he finally said, “You don’t need to be better, you know, not for my sake.”

“I will,” Aziraphale insisted. “I’ll be better.”

That answer didn’t seem to please Crowley, whose frown deepened in some kind of pain or pity. He took Aziraphale’s hand and kissed it, kissed his knuckles and his fingertips, covered it in little pecks. “Try and eat something?”

“I will.”

“I’ll check on you in an hour or two, yeah?”

Aziraphale nodded. He didn’t know if he wanted Crowley to leave just yet, but he let him go. He didn’t know what they’d say to each other now, once the relationship talks had run their course. 

Sleep threatened again, but distantly, and Aziraphale’s eyes lingered in the middle distance, his mind running through scenarios again and again, twisting through the possibilities. He lay still until he’d worked up the strength to do as asked and try some of the sorbet on the nightstand. 

He took one spoonful, then another. It was good, it was something he liked, but he lost interest at two bites. Instead he dragged the heavy book onto the bed to examine Crowley’s latest offering. 

He’d never read  _ Dinotopia _ . There was a story to it, something about a man shipwrecked on an island, if memory served, but in all the hours he’d held this book opened he’d never really absorbed the words. And he’d had it open for many hours, fingers running reverently across the pages, taking in every detail. It was perhaps the one book in his whole collection that he considered a picture-book. 

Aziraphale flicked through the book, letting each page sit open until he’d had his fill, marvelling at how beautiful and creative humans could be. His thoughts wandered if he let them, and sometimes he’d find himself staring without seeing as his brain pressed him to think about his terrible, looming decision. At some point he poured a glass of wine and started drinking steadily, allowing the fuzzy, numbing property of it to keep his focus on the book and out of the clouds. 

Sleep came to him again gently, sneaking up so he didn’t even notice until he was waking up again, one arm draped across the book and sorbet melting on the nightstand. It was easier not to mind when nightmares didn’t chase him and he could sleepily pick up his wineglass and turn another page, warm and calm and protected from thinking about anything. 

It was nighttime when he smelled something unusual, the scent of burnt sugar and bananas that heralded Crowley’s approach. Aziraphale guiltily banished the wine, although he supposed Crowley had seen it when he checked in. 

When the door opened Aziraphale was struck, for the thousandth time, by the complex and compelling beauty of the man he loved. Even now, brandishing a plate like the manager of a restaurant who had been suddenly thrust into a service role when his staff called off sick. How truly ridiculous and wonderful and beautiful to have this arch, pointy, charcoal-drawn demon tending to him.

Crowley set the plate down on the bed and Aziraphale stared at it, bemused. While the other treats he’d offered had been quite artful, as if miracled in from the dessert cart at an upscale restaurant, this was… not that. A mess. It had been intended, Aziraphale supposed, as banana pancakes, as cooked by someone who had never flipped or perhaps seen a pancake. A single misshapen scoop of vanilla icecream was slowly sliding off the wonky stack. 

“I cooked,” Crowley said, as explanation or maybe apology. 

The familiar lump sprung to Aziraphale’s throat. He’d thought he was past crying. 

“Thank you,” Aziraphale whispered, blinking back the tears. 

“They’re not that bad,” Crowley deadpanned, surprising a watery laugh out of him. 

“They’re perfect,” Aziraphale said. 

“Damn right they are. Does that mean you’ll eat?”

Aziraphale nodded. He patted the bed beside him and looked up at Crowley through his lashes, forgetting himself enough to ask, “Sit with me?”

“Yeah, ‘course.”

Crowley toed off his shoes and slipped into the free side of the bed, Aziraphale holding the plate steady as they shuffled and rearranged until Crowley sat beside him, Aziraphale resting in his arms with the plate on his lap. 

The pancakes were still warm and although they looked ridiculous there was no such thing as a bad pancake, especially not one made with so much love. 

The food was good in more than just taste. He didn’t need it to live, but it made him stronger. Not in the way that he might get up and go jogging, but in the way that he had crossed off one of the dozens of discomforts that hounded him. A full stomach, unbitten by acid, made everything else that little bit easier. Between the satisfying food, the wine that kept the worst of his thoughts away, the comfort of Crowley’s arms and the real, true sleep he’d had, he felt rested for the first time since he could remember.

Together they sunk down, inch by inch, bodies melting together as they relaxed, until the plate sat clean and forgotten on the nightstand and Crowley was spooned around Aziraphale. He leaned over the angel’s shoulder as he started back on his book, the two of them admiring the lovely pictures in silence, the occasional kiss dropped to Aziraphale’s shoulder. 

Part of him was still scared, still tense, but he was breathing, and that was something. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	24. with both his arms he took me up

Crowley had slipped into a strange routine. Six thousand years and he’d never really had a routine, just a sort of list of things that he could do and needed to do and wanted to do and he checked them off as they seemed appropriate. Temptation, mischief, food, wine, sleep, telly, whatever was on the go was what he did. Now it appeared he owned a bookshop. 

He cleaned. He tried to do it the human way because Aziraphale would prefer it, but only managed to kick up a cloud of dust so thick he choked on it. It was tricky to get demonic miracles to do good things, he’d passed off a very long list of good things in his own mind as seducing an angel, which was fine for boxes of chocolates and emergency laundry but there was no way to twist deep cleaning a bookshop into something devilish. After a few false starts he sent the thick layer of dust hurtling through the fabric of the world to land in a Tory MP’s office and called it a day. 

He opened the shop twice, just to see if it improved the atmosphere. Customers were persistent buggers, though, and he couldn’t actually let any of the angel’s books go. They usually ran for the door if they found an aggressive black snake curled around their intended purchase, and he only had animal control called on him twice. 

_ Do I look like I own a bookshop? _ he’d asked once. Maybe the guy had seen it, maybe he’d been broadcasting it back then.  _ Do I look like my other half owns a bookshop? Do I look like I dust it and rearrange it and curl up on the couch to sleep of a night? _

He shopped, a sort of desperate, manic instinct that the right  _ thing _ might be just what they needed. Fresh pyjamas Aziraphale was too tired to put on, new mugs with twee designs for cocoa he wouldn’t drink, any cushion that looked soft and fluffy enough. The staff at Marks and Sparks were starting to know him, the guy who’d slink in, grab something small and pretty then be gone, chased home by the idea Aziraphale might call for him and find him missing. 

And he cooked. He’d never cooked in his life but it was suddenly, urgently necessary. Plates from fine restaurants, old favourites and new treats were left ignored on the nightstand, untouched unless he really pressed the angel for a bite or two. The only thing that brought any life back to him was a homemade meal and a cuddle. So Crowley cooked. He figured out how to roll sushi into awkward little circles, took five tries at custard before it stopped being the world’s worst scrambled eggs, and eventually gave up on souffle. 

It was exhausting, and frustrating, soft rice under his fingernails and a dusting of flour over his black clothes, bags of shopping he didn’t quite know what to do with, a shop that only looked more wrong as it got cleaner, no abandoned teacups or haphazard piles of books to betray a living, loving presence. More than once he’d fought down the urge to roar the shop into submission, toss the mangled food onto the street and shake Aziraphale until he woke up. 

Aziraphale had done it for fifteen years, this caring. Slower, more tedious, and with no reason to think he’d ever make a dent. A thousand dates he hated, sex he didn’t enjoy, salvaging every conversation from Crowley’s bites and bile. This every single fucking day bullshit of waking up and doing the things and trying to paint a wall that seemed to absorb every coat but left behind the faintest shade that might, one day, eventually be something like the colour he was looking for. It was a kind of practised love that Crowley could only try to imitate, swallowing down his frustration and putting in the hours. 

It was never easy, but Aziraphale never had been. Aziraphale was the only real thing in the world, the only part of it he couldn’t just make convenient to himself with a thought or a wave of his hand. He could play act at being human, but Aziraphale was the only one who could tell him  _ no _ whether he wanted to hear it or not. It had always made the  _ yes _ into the best part of his day. 

This was no exception. Every silent, scared, unsure hour he spent trying to make things better made it all the sweeter when Aziraphale invited him into bed for a bit of a snuggle. It made him crumple with relief that Aziraphale was letting him touch, letting him hold and kiss and stroke. 

He needed that, didn’t know if he’d have made it this far without that. He had to touch Aziraphale whenever he could, proving to himself over and over that his touch didn’t leave any marks, didn’t blacken and sicken the skin under it. 

He looked at the plate on the counter. A week of cooking didn’t make a chef, but it was a passable pair of chocolate croissants. There had to be some kind of online course for pastry, he could get better at this. He tucked a set of pyjamas under his arm and headed upstairs.

Crowley stood outside the bedroom door and took a breath. This bit was hard, he knew this bit was going to be hard, it was hard every time. It didn’t seem to matter how many times he reassured Aziraphale that he wasn’t there to hurt him, the fears he’d developed grew again whenever he popped down the shops or went to make a cup of tea. It would only be ten or twenty minutes of Aziraphale nervously refusing to look at him, his answers clipped and polite, his hands clenching obsessively. 

Every time he left the room the anxiety grew, his and Aziraphale’s together. Whatever messed up spiral of trauma lived in Aziraphale’s head ballooned and grew without constant reassurance, and a terrible voice whispered in Crowley’s ear that eventually the angel would tell him to leave. Once he was feeling a little stronger, once he was left alone a little too long, he’d decide he hated Crowley and never wanted to see him again.

It hadn’t happened yet, but the threat of it lived in those early moments. 

Just a few minutes. One more time. He could do it one more time. 

He opened the door just in time to see Aziraphale miracle away a bottle of wine, eyes fixed guiltily on the floor.

For fucks sake. He was going to track down Raphael and beat him with the book he should have written about how to deal with this. Crowley couldn’t say anything, he wasn’t even sure he should. He didn’t know what alcoholism would do to an angel, but he was certain if he started in on Aziraphale over anything at the moment it was game over. It wasn’t like it could hurt his body, right?

_ Love him like he is now. _

An idea, probably a stupid idea, formed in his brain in the three seconds he had to come up with a response. 

“Croissants,” he declared, dropping them onto the nightstand. “Pyjamas, if you need a change,” he tossed them on the foot of the bed. “Kiss on the nose,” he leaned in and dropped a messy kiss to the tip of the angel’s nose, knowing he was on the right track from the blush and the chuckle he drew out of Aziraphale. “I’ll be right back.”

Fuck. He couldn’t deal with real problems right now. 

He had his one stupid idea and it felt like his heart was in the right place so he was going for it. He took the stairs two at a time, loping back to the kitchen. He’d stocked up on nibbles because shopping for things felt useful. He stacked a plate high with cheese and olives, grapes, biscuits and dolmades. The wine rack had a few good bottles. Aziraphale always favoured a malbec, so Crowley chose one. He arranged everything in his hands - bottle, glasses, antipasto - and headed back upstairs. Trying to stop Aziraphale drinking would be a disaster, but if it wasn’t a shameful secret, if they were enjoying something together, that was better, right?

“Shove over,” Crowley said as he nudged the door open with one hip. “If you’re going to drink at least have something worth drinking.”

Aziraphale watched him, tense, eyes flicking from his face to the bottle to the plate of nibbles like he expected it was a trap. Like if he accepted it would be a confession of wrongdoing. These first few minutes were hell, they were always hell. Was it worse that the angel thought everything he was doing was in bad faith, or that he only thought that because Crowley had spent twenty years teaching him?

“Love you, angel,” Crowley murmured. “Let me do this for you.”

Aziraphale’s lip trembled and he turned his frightened gaze to the floor again, but he shuffled over anyway, making space in the bed. A little table tray manifested itself in the bed for Crowley to place the plate and glasses on before toeing off his shoes and climbing in. Aziraphale settled against his chest without complaint and he was struck over again with how thin his angel was now. He missed that solid weight of him, he felt too fragile now, bird-bones in his arms and joints in his shoulders easy to jostle or crush. 

With a gesture the blank far wall was suddenly host to a flatscreen tv, eliciting a dismayed gasp from Aziraphale. Crowley grinned. “Humans have had these in their houses for eighty years, you can’t still be calling it modern nonsense.”

“I can,” Aziraphale said, but in his surprise he was more relaxed against Crowley’s body, distracted from being anxious by being indignant. 

“Humour me, movies don’t need as much concentration as books.”

Aziraphale gave a snitty little pout but didn’t lodge any further objections. Crowley set up  _ The Life of Brian _ on the screen, because blasphemy had always amused Aziraphale, and poured them each a glass of wine. 

It was easier, with those first few minutes behind them. Aziraphale snuggled into his side, Crowley stroked his shoulder, constantly welcoming and re-welcoming him into the embrace, and fed him cheese on crackers. He smiled every time Aziraphale stifled a scandalised laugh against his collarbone. 

Aziraphale didn’t say anything about the wine, the cheese, the movie, and Crowley missed his chatter like mad, an endless stream of opinions which only got funnier as they got snobbier. The constant jabs had wired his jaw shut. He’d relax eventually, probably, hopefully. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, an hour into the movie, looking up at him. “Watching this film, I don’t think it’s very religious at all.”

Crowley laughed helplessly, his chin dropping to his chest and his shoulders shaking. He loved this angel so much. Nothing could ever make him laugh like Aziraphale could. 

He wiped a tear from his eye and looked down at Aziraphale, who was waiting for him to reply to this very serious academic supposition, pink lips pursed and fine white brows furrowed. 

“Can I kiss you?”

A little breath left Aziraphale. “Do you want to?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“It’s been a long time since you wanted to.”

With a snap of his fingers Crowley paused the movie. He set his wine glass down and brought up his hand to cup Aziraphale’s face. “I’ve wanted to for all of time. Since there was time. If you’d opened with ‘Hi, my name’s Aziraphale, fancy a snog?’ we would have been necking on the walls of Eden.”

“That was before. Before you knew,” Aziraphale stammered. 

“Before I knew what?”

The pretty flush of the wine seemed to drain away from Aziraphale’s face, replaced with the frailty that had lived there so long. When he spoke his voice was so thin and reedy that Crowley could barely make out the words. “How… how silly I am.”

It hit like a blow to his ribs. Crowley hated himself right then, as much as he’d ever hated anyone and more. He hadn’t been in control the past twenty years but he’d been in control the day he chose this, he’d been himself, he’d loved Aziraphale this much and he’d done it anyway. The guilt could sweep over him like a tidal wave, drag him out to sea and push him under until he drowned. He wanted to beg for forgiveness, for Aziraphale to just  _ understand _ that it had all been Mel, to say none of it counted. But then he would. He’d say the nice things and comfort Crowley and there would never be honesty between them again.

“I love that you’re silly,” Crowley said, fighting the waver in his voice. “Best thing about you. Are you… ready to talk about all that? ‘Bout what’s happened?”

Aziraphale shook his head, almost, more of an involuntary twitch than an answer. “I think… I think I’m ready for you to kiss me.”

Crowley kissed him. It was easy, natural, a falling forward, falling into him. Decades melted away, it was the first time over again, Aziraphale’s mouth soft and unsure under his. The angel leaned into him, pressing up close, their noses bumping together. 

He didn’t linger too long, just enough to make sure Aziraphale was properly kissed. When he pulled back Aziraphale was pleasantly pink in his cheeks, his curls falling over his forehead, flustered and pretty. 

Crowley smiled, bumped his nose against Aziraphale’s, then settled back against the headboard. 

They watched the rest of the movie in peace, the bottle of wine slowly draining and the food disappearing bite by bite, still cuddled up together in bed. 

When it was done Crowley encouraged Aziraphale to take a shower and change pyjamas, he’d feel better if he was clean. There was a little frowning at the suggestion but tottered off to the bathroom without much of an argument, fresh clothes in hand. Crowley ducked downstairs to grab the fresh bedding he’d bought, in green and blue and brown, a velvety duvet cover that had reminded him of a set of curtains Aziraphale had been proud of in the 1830s. 

Before long he had Aziraphale, pink and clean with damp curls, settled back into a fresh bed, looking so much more like himself in among the colours. He thanked Crowley, yawning, and Crowley took the hint, leaving him to another rest. 

Crowley caught sight of himself in the mirror downstairs, in among the jumble of furniture he spent his days cleaning. Yellow eyes stared back at him, snake eyes. A demon. It meant something, something it hadn’t meant before. He saw his own eyes and realised he was happy that Aziraphale had stayed awake for two whole hours and had managed to shower on his own. That his partner of twenty years had tolerated kissing him. That was what victory meant to him. 

He forced himself to keep looking until it sunk in. This was, at best, a bit of progress. That angel upstairs used to never need sleep at all. Given the chance he would fuck all night, energetic and adoring. He used to have a smile that lit up a room like a floodlight. Crowley wasn’t going to be the snake he saw in the mirror, the demon making a presentation to Hell:  _ He’s alive! He’s watching movies, eating cheese. It’s fine, see? _

He closed his eyes and scrubbed a hand over his face. It was a good day. He could call this one a win. But it was time to get back to work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's snuggle time, lads. 
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	25. his arrogance so humbled in him

Aziraphale liked kissing. He’d dreamed about kissing Crowley for years, idle thoughts as far back as the flood. Then significantly less idle thoughts as time went by. He’d been overwhelmed by it in Sandford, overjoyed, swept up in the moment. That was so often the worst part of what had happened, that taste of what he wanted right before it had been ripped away. 

Now, though, after so long, he was allowed to drink his fill. If he liked it a tiny bit less he might instead have come up with a reason why he shouldn’t, or at least moderated himself. But he didn’t like it less, he liked it more, and whenever Crowley came to bed with him he was allowed to kiss, and be kissed, until he was sated. 

Sometimes Crowley would don his own pyjamas, crawl into bed for sleep or a movie. Often they’d end up wrapped in each others’ arms, joined at the mouth, trading lazy kisses for hours. It was lovely, and it was distracting. Aziraphale was learning the value of things that could distract him. With his brain running an endless loop of horrible things, anything that disrupted it was good.

He thought of nothing while kissing Crowley. Everything was new and perfect. The arm around his waist, the hand in his hair, the mouth hungry on his own. Crowley tasted like something inhuman, something familiar from a long time ago, but the warmth and closeness of him was human. Their bodies locked together were human. The little huffing noises from his own throat, the long moan’s from Crowley, the sweat and the squeeze and the press was human. It made his body feel good again. Not just a thing he was dragging through the days, but something that could make him feel good, could be good to others. 

When Crowley slipped a thigh between his legs he leaned into it. Crowley clutched him close, desperate for him again. He slid his hand to Crowley’s hip, encouraged the press forward, tried to get rid of the space between them. 

Aziraphale let himself be swept away in it, revisiting those nights they had done this, heavenly and hellish in equal measure, only now there was no hell to be found here. Crowley wasn’t rocking up against him to scratch an itch, this wasn’t an ailment of the body. It wasn’t play-acting at loving, it was loving. And it felt marvellous to be loved this way. 

Crowley was hard against him and he rocked back insistently, wanting to see his lover reach that peak, wanting to see how much more beautiful he could be. Every breath that came too hard was a marvel, every flinch of his body, every tightening of his hands. 

Aziraphale crushed him close when his breathing started coming too hard to keep kissing. He pressed his face into Crowley’s neck and encouraged him with grasping hands and grinding hips. It felt good, it felt good. 

Crowley let out a hiss in his ear that peaked at a bitten-off moan, body jerking. Aziraphale moaned in return, the shock of pleasure so real it might as well have been his own release. He pressed his face into Crowley’s neck, soaking in the aftermath, the shaky breathing in his ear and the trembling body in his arms. 

It was so peaceful, so relaxing he might have drifted off again, warm in his bed, bundled in soft flannel and in loving arms. 

But Crowley kept trembling, his body going rigid, fingertips digging into his back like claws. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked. 

“M’sorry. Sorry, I’m… I’m sorry, I…” The tension in Crowley snapped and he raised his head, sniffed once and dragged one hand to barely touch Aziraphale’s face, as if he were checking for injuries. His voice was a terrible thing, the kind of forced calm of someone who was panicking. “I won’t do it again, yeah? You don’t have to… You can stay. I won’t do it again.”

Something cold crept up Aziraphale’s spine. “Why wouldn’t I stay? This is my home.”

Crowley sniffed again, his mouth trembling dangerously. “I know, o’course, course you’ll… I mean you don’t have to worry. I promise I won’t do it again, I’ll go slower. So slow,  _ glacial,  _ you’ve never seen slow like I’ll go.”

Something was happening. Something huge, the tip of an iceberg was poking through the surface and he couldn’t make his stupid brain  _ focus _ on what it might mean. 

“We’ve been lovers for twenty years?” It came out like a question. 

It was the wrong thing to say. Crowley stared at him, eyes wide, caught between pain and confusion for so long Aziraphale wondered if he would speak at all. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from babbling. He needed to hear Crowley, he needed to know where he’d gone wrong. What he’d thought was their best morning together by far was apparently some horrible mistake. 

The anxiety swept back like a wave along the shore. Crowley hadn’t liked it. Aziraphale had done something wrong. His body was bad now, thin and wasted from years of neglect. He smelled bad, he was sure, he didn’t shower enough. Or maybe Crowley was insulted that Aziraphale hadn’t finished with him, hadn’t tried to finish after. Or something else, something he hadn’t even noticed, hadn’t accounted for, something he’d never spared a single thought about until Crowley pointed out to him how stupid and careless he was being. 

Crowley didn’t speak, he pulled out of Aziraphale’s arms and made to get up, but didn’t. While Aziraphale was still fumbling for the words to beg forgiveness Crowley sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from him, broad shoulders shaking. 

“I’m sorry,” Crowley repeated, compulsive, voice muddied with tears. 

Aziraphale didn’t know what to do. He ran a hand along that broad expanse of back, ignoring the flinch and letting Crowley settle into the touch. It couldn’t be so bad. Could it?

“Did I do something wrong?” Aziraphale asked. 

“No!” Crowley yelled sharply enough to startle him. “No, you didn’t… didn’t do anything wrong, you never do anything wrong. I can’t stop  _ pushing  _ you and… and if… if…”

His voice dissolved into sobs and hiccups. Aziraphale didn’t know what to do. He sat up and hugged Crowley from behind, squeezing as tightly as he could. He could hear his heartbeat all out of rhythm behind his ribs. Oh, he must have done something so very terrible to make Crowley think his touch was unwelcome. 

Had he been so unkind? Hadn’t he held Crowley’s hand from the first? Invited him into his bed?

Crowley grabbed his hands and pressed them to his face. Aziraphale’s hands were instantly wet with tears, the terrible shape of Crowley’s sobbing mouth pressed into them. 

“Tell me how to fix this, darling,” Aziraphale begged.

“Don’t, please don’t.” 

“Don’t what? What am I supposed to do?”

“You’re not…” Crowley dragged in a hard-won breath. “You don’t have to do things you don’t want to. I couldn’t… couldn’t slow down for you in Sandford and look where we ended up and now I’ve got this chance and I still can’t… I’m still just  _ stupid _ …”

“Don’t say that,  _ please _ don’t say that,” Aziraphale said, face buried in the crook of Crowley’s neck, trying his best to surround and cradle him as he had so often done. He pressed kisses into the skin under his nose, tried to comfort, tried to help him work through the tears. “Do you think I don’t want you this way? Sexually?”

“Of course you don’t! Of course you...I pushed you and pushed you and…” 

The agonised sobs were too much to bear, the way Crowley tried to stifle them was worse. 

Aziraphale had forgotten. He’d been in so much pain he’d forgotten what, exactly, he was so ashamed about. Not a failure of the tongue or the heart, but the look on Crowley’s face on the street in Sandford. He’d let him believe he was unloved. After six thousand years he’d finally thought he was free to love, had made that brave and brilliant move, trusting that Aziraphale would catch him, and Aziraphale had let him fall. 

Aziraphale was the one who had been able to feel it all these years, but Crowley the one who’d been disfigured, waking up years later with blood on his hands and a debt he couldn’t pay. 

He held on, clinging to Crowley as he wept, trying to provide some anchor in the storm, if that was what he wanted. Aziraphale could breathe again, his own pain suddenly gone in the face of Crowley’s. Like a mother lifting a car off her child, his limitations seemed a distant dream. He could do all this, and over again, if it meant helping Crowley. 

“I wanted you in Sandford,” Aziraphale said, the words coming to him from a sacred place. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Not  _ my fault? _ ” Crowley cried, incredulous. 

“Not your fault,” Aziraphale said. “It wasn’t. It’s been six thousand years, my darling, making love was always going to be a knot to untangle. You should have been able to be silly about it. I didn’t need you to be perfect, I shouldn’t have, it was only Mephistopheles. She took advantage of what was bound to happen. You should have been able to be unsure, I should have been able to be scared. We should have fought, and made up, and made love again.”

Aziraphale kissed his shoulder blades, his collarbones.  _ Hamartia  _ and  _ aphesis _ . Mistakes and letting go. “I forgive you, my darling. You owe no debt to me. If you’re here with me, please, let it be because you love me, not because you think you owe me something.”

Crowley twisted around and crushed Aziraphale to him, burying his face in the angel’s chest. Aziraphale buried his hands in soft hair and held him close.

“I’m sorry,” Crowley moaned, again, again. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I. I’m so sorry, my love, I’m so sorry.”

It hurt, in so many ways, begging forgiveness for a decades-old argument that they’d never really finished. He didn’t know if it could be finished now. 

“I love you,” Aziraphale said, because it had already taken him far too long and it was the only thing he knew anymore. “I love you so much, I’m so sorry it took me so long.”

Crowley drew back, looking up at him through wide, pained eyes, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. And he couldn’t, Aziraphale supposed. Why would he after so long?

“I love you,” Crowley croaked, eyes misting over again, lips quirking downward. He held Aziraphale’s face in one hand and kissed him. 

The taste of their tears mingled, kisses interrupted by sniffles, by hugs, faces pressed urgently into each other’s clothing when it all became too much. Apologies were begged over and over, and neither tried to stop the other, or offered anything but forgiveness. By the time they had calmed themselves down Aziraphale felt light, dazed. Unlike his usual fits of despair, this time crying seemed to have finally helped expel something from him. 

Crowley held him for an age, rocking gently, and it wasn’t nice, it wasn’t a good feeling, but it was necessary - surgery on an open wound, pressure on a dislocated joint. A sensation not so different to shock fell over Aziraphale, all the mud of his thoughts falling to the bottom to let the stream run clear. 

They could spend the rest of their lives flinging blame, and he had been sick of it before they’d even started. He could spend centuries in his bed, nursing his wounds. But focusing on himself or on Crowley would only ever be half the equation. They’d both been hurt, they’d hurt each other. 

When Crowley excused himself with the weak excuse of wanting a cup of coffee, Aziraphale sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his hands. 

He didn’t know where this was all headed. They’d come to know things about each other in the last twenty years that they hadn’t known for the six thousand prior. Once everything was patched and bandaged, once this fragile feeling receded, Crowley might still decide none of it was worth the trouble. He might now see all the things his loveless half had considered so important and be as scornful as he had been at their lowest. Aziraphale wouldn’t blame him if he did. But there would be no clear-headed decisions while he was still bleeding, while either one of them was still wounded and desperate for comfort. 

What they needed, they needed together. 

Aziraphale pushed himself to his feet and made his way to the shower. 

It felt like there was a nerve that ran from behind his eyes right down to his tailbone, and that nerve trembled. It had been set trembling the night Crowley had told him he loved him again and it hadn’t stopped. It rattled through his bones, his teeth, his muscles, turned all his organs to jelly. Most days it felt like that nerve would shake him apart. But standing in the aftermath of what he’d witness, hot water sluicing down his back, he began to think that it might not be the only nerve in his body that worked anymore. 

There was another part of that internal infrastructure, something that he felt had been born with him. It was the thing in him that had raised his wing to shelter Crowley on the walls of Eden, the thing that kept him coming back to humans even after the Crusades and the Inquisition, the steel spine of him that made him strong when others needed him. 

When he was clean enough he wrapped himself in a towel and opened his wardrobe. The clothes didn’t fit right, but what did it matter? It was just the two of them. He went through the comforting routine of underwear, socks, undershirt, a dash of cologne. He picked out his most comfortable trousers, an old, soft cotton shirt. When he was ready, he topped it off with his old housecoat. 

It was time to push, just a little. It was time to test that trembling nerve and see how it reacted to being ignored. Because Crowley was bleeding, and while one of them bled, the other would. They would take their penance from themselves and each other until they were bled dry. It was time for an  _ aphesis _ . They had to let go together. 

It was bad, it was difficult, pitting steel spine against jellied legs. There was no moment of overcoming, each step was slow and had to be considered at great length. 

At one point on the stairs (which Aziraphale was sure hadn’t been so steep before) he thought he was going to be sick. Or fall. Or both seemed very likely. 

But at the bottom of those stairs he caught sight of Crowley, or rather, Crowley caught sight of him. And after a few stunned moments, the hopeful, watery smile that lit up his face was the most beautiful thing Aziraphale had ever seen. 

“I thought,” Aziraphale said, trying to hide his shortness of breath. “I thought I might like a cup of coffee, too, dear boy. If you wouldn’t mind.”

Crowley trembled, mouth trying to smile and cry at once, but he tamped it down quickly, left radiating so much hope that it made Aziraphale ache. “One coffee, coming right up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	26. a greater sadness

**November**

Aziraphale stared at the clothes he’d laid out on his bed. They fit him. They were good. Modern. Maybe even stylish. 

He hated them. 

Raphael had made him feel good, if only for a little while. He’d felt supported. He’d lived a long time, he knew trends came and went, and the people who in their youth scorned certain superficial things were much more accepting of them when they were older. He’d always been above all that, a pillar of perspective to fickle human minds. He’d also made his fair share of mistakes, and sometimes needed another trusted opinion. 

The mustard jacket had seemed so nice when he’d first miracled it into existence. It had made him feel clean and put together after years of neglect. 

Now, what was it? What was this feeling that jacket inspired? It made him feel like a stupid, twee old man who hadn’t realised how foolish he was being. It was all he seemed to feel nowadays, so he supposed he couldn’t blame the jacket. 

Warm arms encircled him from behind, sleepy kisses dropped to the line of his neck. “S’matter, angel?”

Aziraphale didn’t know quite how to answer. He didn’t think he could cope with his worries being dismissed as nonsense. He could spot the bad thoughts, he had practice now, but it was harder to dispel them than just to hear how silly they were. 

“I don’t like it much anymore,” he said instead of the truth. 

“It looks good on you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“I was being a git,” Crowley said, firm, all traces of sleep gone from him. “I was mad at Raphael, took it out on you. The jacket looks good.”

Aziraphale leaned back into Crowley’s arms, taking the offered comfort even as he stared at the hated thing. “What if I don’t like it anyway?”

“Then don’t wear it.”

“The thing is,” Aziraphale said, “I don’t know what I’d prefer to wear.”

“Where are you going?”

Aziraphale was very close to going nowhere. It had seemed like a good idea, as he worked up to it during the week. Raphael had been clear about what he needed to do to heal. He was looking after himself, and together he and Crowley were working on forgiving themselves. Now it was just… how had he put it? Getting people around him. 

“Church,” he said, eyes unfocused on the bed before him. “It’s Sunday.”

Crowley was silent for a long moment, but his arms were still warm, his lips still tickled at Aziraphale’s neck. “Let me drive you.”

“It’s not far.”

“Let me walk you, then.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “I don’t think… I don’t think I’m ready, yet. I thought I was but it turns out I’m not.”

Crowley tightened his embrace and Aziraphale leaned back into it, closing his eyes. He ought to be able to go out. He ought to be able to make friends, give more to the homeless shelter, talk theology with humans. He ought to be able to leave his shop. 

“S’alright,” Crowley murmured into his neck, squeezing him tight. “Why don’t I make some appointments on Savile Row for next week? We’ll make a day of it.”

“I’m not sure a tailor can fix this.”

“Prob’ly not. But we can have some fun, can’t we? Baby steps?”

Fun. It had been a while since that had been an option. He wasn’t sure if he was up to that either, but he’d have a few more days to work up his nerve, and if he couldn’t go through with it he was sure Crowley would understand. 

“Yes, alright. Baby steps.”

Crowley bit down gentle on the tendon in his neck and he shivered. 

“Good,” the demon said. “Now back to bed with you. It’s a crime you haven’t seen _The Birdcage_ yet.”

**December**

_Is it culturally insensitive to wish you Merry Christmas?_

Crowley smirked at his phone. Adam could get as old as he liked, he would always be a little shit. _Completely. How dare you._

_Pass it along to Az, then._

He closed the Bentley’s door and skipped over the footpath into the bookshop, paper bags of shopping in one hand. The bell above the door chimed for him. The shop was looking better, feeling better, the air was clear, the tabletops were getting cluttered with books and teacups, and a pretty angel was reading in an armchair. 

Aziraphale’s smile was still muted, fragile, but it was _there_ and that felt like a win. It came easily now, flashed around at any old thing. And blessit all he looked good in blue.

“Adam sends holiday cheer,” Crowley said, bustling past with the shopping. “Got some Christmas things. Fairy lights, some of my best work, we can spend the next five hours untangling them.”

“You hate Christmas,” Aziraphale said, still reading his book. 

“Love Christmas,” Crowley protested. “Turning Yeshua’s birth into a carnival of greed and gluttony, what’s not to like?”

“You’ve made fun of me about Christmas for the last five hundred years at least.” There was a glint in Aziraphale’s eye that Crowley didn’t like. He was looking for a fight.

“You’ve convinced me,” Crowley tried. “After all these years I’ve seen the light.”

“I’m not an invalid, Crowley. I do wish you’d be…”

A welt of anger sprung up in the back of Crowley’s mouth. He kept his back to the angel, so he wouldn’t see the grimace. He’d been at this for months, watching Aziraphale dither back and forth, did he want to be together, did he not. Was he getting better, was he not. Would he ever leave these four walls of his own volition again. Crowley was trying his hardest and none of this came naturally. He wasn’t going to lose his temper, but for a moment it wasn’t a sure thing. 

“Be what, angel?” he asked, keeping his voice quiet, gentle always.

“I don’t know. Normal? I won’t fall apart if you rib me now and again, you know.”

For someone so smart, it was amazing how incredibly, unspeakably wrong Aziraphale could be at times. Crowley could see where he thought he was coming from. He missed it, too, just being easy with each other, relaxed, never walking on eggshells. That didn’t change the fact that letting any hint of mockery into his voice at this stage of the game would be the end of them. Aziraphale would fall apart, Crowley would fall apart, too. 

“I’m not ready for that, yet,” Crowley said, because he needed to take this one on the chin. Aziraphale thought he was better. He needed to think that. 

He turned to see Aziraphale’s eyes on him, swimming with sympathy. The angel smiled a gentle smile. “Of course, dear.”

“Good, settled. Now feed me brandy until I can’t see straight, will you?”

**January**

Aziraphale couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched. It was an experiment, Crowley had said, no pressure. Their first dinner out as a true couple. The restaurant was lovely, the wait staff were polite, the food excellent, yet he couldn’t quite settle. There was a live wire running under his skin, preparing him to take flight at any second. 

Crowley sat across from him, watching, poised as he always tended to be during the dessert course. The dark chocolate parfait in front of Aziraphale looked delicious and he was going to enjoy it, he was. He was enjoying himself. 

“You are hating every minute of this, aren’t you?” Crowley asked. 

Aziraphale picked up his spoon and offered a smile that felt tight on his face. “No, dear, I’m not.”

“Then tell me about it.”

“I’m just… I don’t know. It’s lovely here and I know there’s nothing to worry about but I can’t seem to relax. Please don’t be disappointed.”

“M’not. Not all our ideas are winners. Listen, I got you something.” Crowley reached to somewhere below the table and produced a little gift baggy overflowing with purple tissue paper. He slid it across the table. “If you want it.”

Aziraphale set down his spoon again, parfait untasted, and fished out a set of keys. They were old, but only by human standards, maybe fifty years, and had no keyring offering any explanation. “What do they open?”

“Little cottage by the sea. Well, not that little. Enough room for us, your books, anything you want. We don’t have to, or we don’t have to right now, but if you wanted to be someplace quieter, it’s there.” Crowley stared at the table while he spoke, his throat working nervously. “The town has a church, and a bookclub, couple of restaurants.”

Aziraphale clutched the keys in one hand, the gesture sinking in by degrees, and his heart swelled with it. A cottage by the sea, where years could slip by unnoticed, just the two of them. The city had been his life for so long but it wasn’t fitting him quite as well as it once had, he knew that. 

“You want that?” He asked, sounding a bit more weepy than he’d hoped. “To live with me properly? So far away?”

Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose, discreetly rubbed at his eyes under his sunglasses, battling some emotion he hadn’t voiced. “Of course that’s what I want. I would have kidnapped you to the middle of space if you’d given me the time of day. Let’s go get married by the seaside and be a couple of local characters in a small town and see how many books we can fit in a single cottage. I’ll get you a dog, do you want a dog? I’ll get you a dog.”

Aziraphale’s heart had promptly stopped some time before Crowley was finished speaking. He blew by his own proposal so fast that Aziraphale doubted he even realised what he’d said. But that hardly mattered, did it? After these terrible months, after those terrible years, he hadn’t wavered at all. He still wanted Aziraphale, and he wanted him forever.

“You know I think I would like a dog,” said Aziraphale. 

He picked up his spoon again and took a tasting bite of his dessert. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he might be newly engaged. So it wasn’t so bad, the idea of people watching. 

**February**

The cottage had been a brilliant idea. Crowley hadn’t realised he’d needed it as much as Aziraphale. Space to breathe, space to fill with things, privacy to stretch his wings if he wanted and to watch Aziraphale colour in all the blank parts of their new life. 

The angel painted their bedroom sea green, the human way, little flecks of it etched into his skin for days. He handled and dandled and fondled books he hadn’t touched in centuries, deciding on one system to organise, then another, then no, the first one. He bought blue throw cushions and tartan throw rugs and impressionist paintings in pastels and vivid greens. His cheeks were rounded and pink, his eyes sparkled with interest, his hands fluttered about. 

Aziraphale was alive, he was breathing, he was eating. The other stuff came and went, but the good days came as often as the bad. Crowley hadn’t killed his angel. He was getting more sure of it with every day that passed. 

Crowley made himself a garden. He had the conservatory where his Mayfair house plants could live, but they had acres of land and it seemed like the thing to do. Aziraphale pushed book after book into his hands, they read up together on things like soil pH and drainage. He could sit in the garden, up to his elbows in dirt and earthworms, no sound but the distant, crashing waves, and let himself uncoil. 

On a streak of good days he could even do more than soldier on. He could enjoy it. Aziraphale kneading bread in the kitchen made his heart bubble with love. Pretty bluebell eyes would flash his way and he’d laugh and ask what the angel needed that he could provide. They’d make out in front of the telly of an evening, legs tangled together. 

They kept up with London, when they needed to. Weekend trips were planned. Furnishers and tailors were visited. Crowley kept texting Adam, because he was his godfather, he should be involved. 

Some days it barely hurt at all. Baby steps. 

Aziraphale had found himself a grand piano, kept it in the corner of the living room and some days Crowley would find him plinking away at it without any real purpose. 

“I thought I’d learn,” he’d said. He hadn’t met Crowley’s eye. “I thought I might enjoy it.”

Crowley really, really hoped he enjoyed it. They hadn’t talked about Esther and Raph, the implications, the impact. Maybe they never would. But Aziraphale might enjoy his piano, and he could do that without anyone bringing Esther’s name into it. 

They could be happy here, Crowley was slowly coming to accept. They could be happy. What had been impossible in London looked more manageable from this angle. Aziraphale’s shy smile was getting brighter and one day he’d see the real thing again. After everything they needed a holiday from the world, a place to rest. 

They’d never had the chance before. Maybe, even with the worst coming to pass, they had the chance now.

**March**

“ _Hi, mum. I’m sorry to be here and gone like this…_ ”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure how many times he’d watched the message. He curled tighter into his bed, the blankets so fluffy they almost eclipsed him. The sun shone through the windows, it was a beautiful day. He clutched the rose hairpin so tightly it left pink marks in his hand. 

“ _I love you. I promise I’ll think about you every day._ ”

“How are you doing there?” Crowley stood in the doorway, his face a mask of half-put-together calm. It had been a while since Aziraphale’s last pyjama day. 

Eve smiled at him from the telephone. She was so lovely. As she talked he could see himself and Crowley, Esther and Raphael, all mixed up. The better parts of them. Fire, strength and light. His daughter. 

Just a little twist of fate, a nudge off course, and she might have been his. 

“I need a little while,” he said, and it was true, but he didn’t like how blank and dead his voice sounded saying it. 

“ _Hi, mum. I’m sorry to be here and gone like this…_ ”

Crowley cast worried eyes over him but left him to it. He needed another day, week, month in bed, it seemed only right. Eve was a chasm of sadness inside him that didn’t seem to shrink or lessen, and never would, he assumed. There was nothing he could do to ease the pain. He’d never had her, she was gone forever. The light of a life that wasn’t his. 

At some point, Eve’s smile frozen on the screen, he called for Crowley. He was met with silence. He called again. Silence again. A pang of fear lanced through him. This couldn’t be it, could it? Crowley wouldn’t give up on him now, not after everything. Maybe he had fallen to pieces one too many times. Maybe Crowley didn’t love Eve the same way he did and thought all of this was pathetic. 

Tears and panic seized him but he couldn’t stop watching the message, over and over, alone in his bed. He let out a sob of relief when he heard the Bentley roaring up the laneway toward him, praying that Crowley had come to reconcile, not to leave him. 

He had gotten it all wrong, he realised, when Crowley appeared in the doorway trying to contain a ball of wiggling golden fur. The puppy was trying its hardest to wriggle out of his grasp only to suddenly find itself launched through the air, landing with a soft _fwump_ on the bedspread. 

Aziraphale was still gathering his thoughts, putting his insides back together, trying to find the words to express everything he’d gone through during the day when a puppy tried to stick its tongue in his mouth. 

He sputtered, bubbles of laughter rising and escaping as he defended himself, pulling the overly affectionate thing away even as it seemed determined to french kiss him. Soon he was bodily holding the little thing down, wheezing with laughter, and not thinking about anything at all. 

“He’s a golden retriever,” Crowley said, smiling fondly from the doorway. “I thought we could call him Crumpet.”

Aziraphale laughed, and sniffled, and lost the battle to avoid being thoroughly kissed by a puppy. He nodded, overflowing. “Yes, I think we should.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	27. a marvel it appeared to me

Aziraphale was beautiful, Crowley decided. Well, he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. As the days wore on and a sense of timeless, sun-drenched calm took over he found himself lingering more and more on Aziraphale’s eyes, his lips, his gradually rounding figure. 

It was the smiles. Not the bright, brilliant ones that had haunted him for so long, but a whole catalogue he’d come to love. The adoring eyes he’d give while sitting at the table, watching Crowley cook dinner. The amused quirk of his lips when he’d look up from his book long enough to offer a cutting remark. The besotted half-grin that swept over him whenever Crumpet was being adorable. 

Aziraphale smiled so often, in fact, that when his mouth was set and grim it was the sign something was on his mind. 

Crowley decided to wait him out, snuggled on the couch under a fuzzy blue blanket, Crumpet curled up between them fast asleep as they watched some gardening show on the BBC. He dropped kisses into Aziraphale’s hair whenever he felt like it, rubbed his shoulder, let him work through whatever was going on in that pretty head of his. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked while a bloke on the telly was talking to them about mushroom fertiliser. 

“Yes, angel?”

The angel stayed silent for a long time. Long enough that Crowley’s heart started to kick up a fuss, wondering exactly how terrible this night was about to get. The angel’s hands were in Crumpet’s fur, running in short strokes, over and again, a nervous tic. 

“Only I’ve been thinking, wondering, I suppose,” Aziraphale said finally. He kept his eyes fixed on Crumpet. “I’ve been… It’s… It’s only I know I didn’t do everything right, while you were… I know, don’t I, it’s not as if there was some guidebook to follow. Mistakes were bound to happen, even with the best intentions.”

Crowley kissed his temple and smoothed his hands through soft white curls. “All forgiven, remember?”

“I know. I’m sure you’re not holding anything against me.”

“Then what’s on your mind?”

A full bodied squirm worked its way through Aziraphale, his frown dipping into something grief-stricken and terrible. “I… I… Sex.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Sex?”

“Yes, sex. We’ve our own bedroom and all the time in the world, but we don’t…”

“You minx,” Crowley said, nudging him with his shoulder. “Is this a seduction?”

“You devil, I’m trying to ask if I did the right thing, all those times. If I’ve… injured you, in that way.”

Crowley had not been thinking about that. He’d done everything he could not to think about that. Their sex life was a big, messy question, to be tossed in the pile of big, messy questions they were dealing with in bite sized pieces as they could stomach it. He could reassure Aziraphale that it wasn’t his fault, that there hadn’t been any good choices and that whatever compromises they’d made to stay alive and half-sane were worth it on this end. But that hadn’t been the question. 

Aziraphale wanted to know if Crowley was wounded. And… yes. That was a hard yes. Not physically, that was never an option. And not just from dispassionate stress relief that turned thousands of years of fantasies into grotesque parodies. Not even just from the pain he’d inflicted there, undoubtedly some of his worst work. He’d been a mess in Sandford, a mess before then, they hadn’t had a chance to even start poking at the edges of that particular bruise before it all went to hell. 

“Is that something you’re interested in? Sex? You’re ready for it?” Crowley asked, trying to tame the riot in his head into some kind of answer.

“I think so, yes. But I don’t think I could bear it if it only reminded you of… of that. Or if you were doing it to humour me, or if I did something wrong and you didn’t want to tell me, or…” Aziraphale sighed. “Are you interested in it? Do you think you could feel good about it, given everything?”

Crowley lit up like a Christmas tree with the strength of his _yes._ His brain helpfully supplied endless fantasies of Aziraphale spread out beneath him, wrecked, flushed and sweating, keening in pleasure. He wanted that. He’d wanted that for millenia, he’d driven himself half mad with wanting it. 

And lately… well, lately Aziraphale was looking healthier. Chubby cheeks and doe eyes, mouth enticingly pink, body soft enough to sink into and lose himself. 

But nothing was quite so simple these days. 

There was just no easy way to point out that the angel’s cock hadn’t worked right in years. And no matter how demonstrative Crowley was learning to be, he didn’t know how to say that he’d die if they had sex and didn’t cuddle for at least eight hours after. 

Maybe it was the healthy thing, but Crowley didn’t think he could take this one particular issue being spread out and dissected like a frog while they carefully decided how many stitches to put it back together. Loving Aziraphale, showing him in every way available to them, had always come naturally. He couldn’t take this becoming clinical. 

“Angel, will you come upstairs and get naked and silly with me?” Crowley asked. “On the condition that if it all goes horribly wrong we decide to find it funny instead of sad?”

A little bubble of laughter escaped Aziraphale and he cuddled in closer. “That sounds perfect.”

“Do you want to finish watching the gardening first?”

Aziraphale laughed properly this time, a belly laugh that shook him as he buried his face in Crowley’s chest. He uncurled himself from the couch, the dog sliding unceremoniously onto the cushions, and offered Crowley his hand. 

Crowley took the offered hand, let Aziraphale drag him to his feet and two steps toward the stairs, then pushed him up against the wall and kissed him. 

Aziraphale let out a little _mmph_ of surprise before responding, smiling against his mouth and pulling him in closer, so they were pressed together hip to shoulder. 

Crowley kept him there, crowded against the wall, hands unable to decide if they wanted to grasp soft curls or thick waist or fuzzy chin and so flitting between as Aziraphale chuckled. Who knew how it would go? As long as the angel kept smiling they could do this. 

They eventually made it up the stairs, pausing to keep kissing, to keep pressing into each other, shoved up against walls and bannisters. A brief stop to proceedings to miracle the dog into remembering he had a bone buried in the backyard he was desperate to get to, and then a slightly longer stop for Aziraphale to get his laughter under control while Crowley tried and failed to glower at him. 

By the time they reached the bedroom, lowlit by the setting sun, Aziraphale was breathless, flushed pink and beautiful. Crowley admired him, letting himself turn sappy and lovestruck. 

The angel reached for the buttons on his own waistcoat and Crowley batted his hands away. “Oh, no. I get to unwrap you this time.”

He pushed Aziraphale onto the bed, following on hands and knees. The smiles stayed, lingered, but their laughter was getting overtaken by heavy breathing. Crowley’s body was tightening, getting the memo on what was happening. He had his best friend back, and on his back, and they were about to make some new memories. 

Aziraphale’s eyes were dark as Crowley started flicking his buttons undone, one by one, but he also looked lost, his hands resting on the bedspread as if he didn’t have permission to touch. He didn’t know what to do, Crowley realised, when they had always undressed themselves. 

Crowley parted his waistcoat, tugged at his bowtie and loosened his shirt, then pushed the whole mess down his shoulders. A short, panting, laughing struggle with his undershirt and he had a half-naked angel underneath him. 

Crowley pressed a kiss to the tender skin of Aziraphale’s wrist, then guided the lost hand into his hair. The other soon followed, and some kind of calm descended on the angel, as if he could now concentrate on his own harsh breathing, Crowley’s hands on him. 

Angel calm, Crowley could return to his task, burying his nose in flushed, hot skin. He dragged his mouth down until he was at Aziraphale’s hip, the love handle he’d made with hours in the kitchen. He’d made it with pancakes and moussaka and risotto. He’d made it baking, chopping, folding, whisking. Now he made Aziraphale squirm and laugh by biting into it. 

“ _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale whined, trying to wiggle away from him, tugging at his hair. 

Crowley looked up at him, a grin sweeping over his face. “Angel… are you ticklish?”

“ _No_.”

“Lying, now?” Crowley tsked, still holding his friend down with an iron grip. “What would they say upstairs?”

He thought about blowing raspberries into Aziraphale’s tummy but decided that was probably a little beneath him, settling for smothering him with bites and kisses until he was yelping and squirming. Soon they were more wrestling than making out. Aziraphale was tantalisingly strong beneath him, his hands yanking at Crowley’s hair in an extremely interesting manner. 

Crowley managed to work his way between Aziraphale’s legs, pressing up against him as he pulled his belt buckle open. 

It was quick work from there, hands tugging at his shirt, trousers pushed down hips and shoes kicked across the room until their bodies were rocking together and their laughter had turned into undignified moans. As soon as he felt Aziraphale hard against his hip Crowley let out a long breath and felt the tension in his shoulders unwind. It felt good, embarrassingly good, naked skin against naked skin and Aziraphale soft and strong underneath him, and he didn’t need to hide his own stone-hard cock if the angel felt it too. 

He’d missed this without knowing it. Aziraphale was beyond lovely in the sunset, in their bed, pale and pink, mouth soft, body begging to be taken. Sin incarnate. 

“You’re fucking beautiful,” Crowley rasped. “Let me take care of you tonight.”

He punctuated the words by sitting back, spreading Aziraphale’s thighs with his hands. 

Something was in Aziraphale’s face as he ceded his hold on Crowley’s hair, lying back against the pillows. Surprise, dismay, simple overwhelm? 

Crowley held still, statue still, snake still, waiting for the go ahead. They’d been pussyfooting around each other for nearly a year, he wasn’t going to listen to his stupid dick and ruin things now. Nothing the angel wouldn’t like. 

Another breath, a beat, and Aziraphale nodded, eyes wide with nerves and blown with arousal. 

Crowly fell forward, kissing his lips, hand seizing and scratching at his neck, his shoulder. Their hips met, rocked, sent groans through the both of them as Crowley kissed and bit his way down Aziraphale’s neck. Crowley’s hands trembled as they skimmed over Aziraphale’s face, his shoulder, his belly. 

He sat back on his heels, pulled a bottle of lube out of the ether. He moved slowly, let Aziraphale watch what he was doing as he dripped some onto his palm, rubbed his hands together to warm it, then slipped his hand between them to wrap around the angel’s cock. 

Aziraphale moaned, his mouth falling open and his eyes slipping closed. “Crowley…”

“I’ve got you, angel. Make it feel good for you.”

He took his time, a firm, slow grasp as he watched every twitch and tremble, the serene ecstasy that fell over his lover as they moved together. Twenty years. Fifteen as friends. Ten as lovers. A long decade of being neglected was all unwinding in Aziraphale’s body as he worked. A rediscovery on his face, in the line of him, the hands dug firm in the pillow behind his head. 

“I love you,” Crowley murmured, slipping his free hand lower, pressing against him with the promise of a breach. “I’m doing this because I love you. Because you’re beautiful.”

His only answer was a moan, a groan, a buck of hips. Crowley wanted, he wanted so badly, wanted to be buried deep inside his angel, wanted to be moaning just the same, wanted to see Aziraphale fall apart around him. He pressed a finger inside and Aziraphale let out a shrill cry. He was still hard in Crowley’s hand, flushed red with blood. 

Crowley worked his finger in further, fucking him slowly, pressing and pushing until he could stand a second. Aziraphale was unspeakable as he arched and moaned, nothing more beautiful in the world. The tip of Crowley’s cock dragged across his thigh, leaving a slick trail, begging for attention. 

Crowley pressed forward, fucked and stretched, pushed and pulled, did his best to find that sweet spot inside and was rewarded with a cry and a buck of soft hips whenever he did. He was torn between staying just like this forever and taking what his body was demanding. 

When Aziraphale was too far gone to complain he slipped both hands free, and grabbed his arse in two delicious handfuls, spreading and angling him. Aziraphale was gorgeous and fire-hot and begging him. It all felt natural. It all felt good. 

_Just don’t fuck this up._

Crowley pressed forward, pressing the head of his cock into that welcoming heat. Aziraphale’s shocked, pained gasp made him slow down but he pushed forward. 

“Talk to me, angel,” he choked out, his whole world narrowing to _hot_ and _wet_. “Tell me it feels good.”

“It’s… it’s good, it’s so much,” Azirpahale panted, eyes squeezed shut. 

“You feel so good.” Crowley fell forward, curling around his angel so their bodies were flush. He dropped his forehead to Aziraphale’s. “Hands in my hair, angel.”

Aziraphale’s hands were clenched tight, he pulled them to Crowley’s hair like he was rock climbing, hauling himself between handholds. The sting of it shot right down Crowley’s spine and he rocked forward. 

They were face to face, nose to nose, gasping breaths between them. Aziraphale’s vice grip slowly relaxed and he pushed forward again. Again. 

“You feel so good,” he groaned. He grabbed at Aziraphale, urging him backwards, crowding him up against the headboard on the pillows. He was overheating, sweat dripping down his spine. “You feel so good.”

At the right angle, the angel braced against the bed, he could get the full weight of him in his arms. He was heavy, warm, soft, a perfect counterpoint to the solid smacks of Crowley’s hips against him. _Fuck_ , he felt good. 

Too good. The peak was looming, and Crowley couldn’t let it happen. If he came first Aziraphale would flag, he’d call it done, and he wasn’t there yet. Crowley bit down on the inside of his cheek, determined to hold on. 

Aziraphale’s rising _oh, oh, oh_ echoed in his ears, his hands clenched tighter, yanking at Crowley’s hair.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whined. “Crowley…”

“Call me darling,” Crowley growled. 

“Darling, darling, please,” Aziraphale pulled at his hair, arched into him. “I need you to… I need you to…”

Fucking perfect prissy angel, couldn’t even say it when he was half-gone. “Not yet. Not until you’ve come for me.”

“Please, _please,_ darling, I need you.”

Crowley ground his teeth together, so close he was floating, he was tightening, he couldn’t stop the noises coming from the back of his throat. But he wasn’t going to let go. Aziraphale didn’t need him to come, he needed to feel wanted.

Crowley leaned down and nipped at his earlobe. “I”m going to. I’m going to come inside you.”

The whimper that rang in the air was almost too much for him. 

“You feel so fucking good, I can’t stand it,” Crowley whispered, pushing forward, fucking into his angel, eyes swimming with the effort of holding back. “My angel, if you could see yourself, you’re so gorgeous. Love you. Loved you forever.”

Aziraphale keened, his back arching. So close. So close. 

A gasp, a cry, and it was a miracle to watch him fall apart. His muscles clenched, back bowing, his face a mask of ecstasy and agony as he spilled between them. 

Twenty years of perfunctory bloodletting and now it was this, now it was Aziraphale hot and beautiful around him, sweat dripping between them. Now it was an angel trembling and gasping in his arms, shocks running through them.

Crowley fucked him through it as a terrible, wonderful sound ripped out of him, his eyes went hazy and his body finally let go. He whited out, burying his face in Aziraphale’s neck and moaning, moaning as it all burst out of him. 

He let his body twitch and shiver in the aftermath, Aziraphale’s hands still locked in his hair as he caught his breath. 

When he was able to find something like coordination of his limbs he collapsed to the side, boneless. “Jesus, fuck, Aziraphale,” he breathed. 

Aziraphale laughed, giddy. “Yes, that.”

They both lay flat on their backs staring at the ceiling, the only sound between them their slowing breath. The sun was gone, moonlight shining in through the window, and somewhere downstairs Crumpet was noisily chewing something he shouldn’t be. Their bed, that they’d shared for a hundred nights, was now rumpled and out of sorts. 

Aziraphale started giggling first and Crowley followed soon after. He grabbed the angel’s hand and kept it close. It was dizzying, a natural high. The shadows of their lives couldn’t be dispelled by a shag but they could certainly be temporarily chased away. Crowley was relaxed, warm and comfortable, and laughing for reasons he couldn’t really name. 

“Well we kept our promise,” Aziraphale said.

“Hmm?”

“I’m not the least bit sad.”

Crowley nearly made a joke. It was already on his tongue. _Not surprised, seeing as you come like you’re auditioning for pornhub._

Maybe one day Aziraphale would give him a foul look and shoot something equally cutting back at him. Maybe he’d laugh instead, ask if he passed the audition. But not today. 

Instead Crowley held out his arms and let Aziraphale shuffle into them, wrapping them together, sticky and tired and satisfied. He kissed the angel’s hair where it was plastered to his forehead, and closed his eyes, relaxed in a way he hadn’t been since… well, ever. 

“Me either, angel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com)


	28. thence we came forth to rebehold the stars

They were married in the autumn, on a cliff overlooking the sea. Crowley wore black, and Aziraphale wore white, and Crumpet wore pink roses wound through his collar. Adam agreed to be their celebrant, to make the whole thing feel official, the only local authority they could find. 

It was nice, it was memorable, the sea and the sunset, their human friends and the kids that crowded around them. Crowley didn’t think his voice had ever been so steady as when he was repeating the words Adam fed to him, an ancient incantation, a promise that couldn’t be fully expressed in just one speech. 

He’d bought a gold ring for Aziraphale, gone to a human jeweler so they’d always have a piece of 21st century London. He’d tried for weeks to come up with something profound to engrave on the inside and eventually settled on  _ I love you _ , because anything he wrote there would just mean that, anyway. Because Aziraphale needed to carry that with him always. 

When the angel was having a bad day and he needed to leave for whatever reason Crowley would bundle Crumpet up in bed with him and press kisses to that gold ring. “M’coming back, remember?”

But there weren’t many of those days. It would be easy to call it done. Crowley could ignore the little, constant things, if he wanted to. Aziraphale wasn’t as chatty as he used to be, he didn’t read as much… there was just something in the way he held himself, the way he moved through the world that wasn’t quite like it used to be. 

Love him like he is now, right? That’s what Raphael had said. It was a blurry line between where he’d been changed by experience and where he was still nursing wounds. 

It was a snowy day when he first decided to leave the house. Crowley came downstairs to find him rugged up in a coat and scarf, Crumpet on his leash trying to wind circles around his legs. 

“People need a bit of extra help in this chill,” he said, when asked. 

Crowley kissed his cheek and thanked whoever was listening. “I’ll have dinner ready at six.”

Aziraphale didn’t end up joining the church, but visited the food bank whenever he felt up to it. Crowley had to start up a rigged weekly poker game at the pub to balance things out before the village realised they had an angel protecting them. 

The great outdoors was still a bit too big for Aziraphale, and the more Crowley thought about it, the more he thought it was too big for him, as well. Yeah, he made a bit of trouble around town, went to London from time to time, ducked over to Paris for crepes and brioche in white styrofoam containers, but it wasn’t the same as it had been. It only felt right at home. At home they could call out when they needed to hear each other’s voices, there were no humans to startle Aziraphale, there was nothing of Hell or of Heaven or any of the people they were trying to forget. 

They could just eat muffins, or walk on the beach, or make stupid noises at the dog. No one keeping track, no reports, no paperwork, no old friends. Crowley could never quite shake the feeling he was being watched as soon as he stepped out of the property bounds, certain there was a demon hiding where he’d least expect it. He couldn’t quite forget the flower show. 

The angel took up the piano. Or tried to. He mastered  _ Chopsticks _ and was very pleased with himself about it. 

“I’m begging you to learn another song, angel.”

Aziraphale gave a prim little wiggle. “Esther had six thousand years of practice, my dear, give me some time.”

“Literally anything else. Try  _ Hot Cross Buns _ .”

Crowley didn’t set fire to the piano that day, but it was a near thing. 

When Aziraphale moved onto  _ The Entertainer _ Crowley opened the bottle of champagne he’d been saving. 

In March he found Aziraphale in the kitchen, muttering to himself, eyes squeezed shut and fists clenched. He’d eased those fists open, laced their fingers together, tried to kiss the ghost from his eyelids. 

Was this the new normal? He asked himself again and again. They had eternity to change and grow, nothing would be forever, but it could feel like it. Was the muttering a bad sign? It wasn’t hurting him, did it matter? Was he just being critical, trying to get rid of the parts he didn’t like, the things that made him uncomfortable?

He didn’t come up with an answer. 

If everything else was precarious, sex was easy, a reprieve for both of them. Crowley should have known his angel would be an incorrigible flirt and a greedy lover when given half a chance. And after being thoroughly put through his paces, he could spend hours basking in Aziraphale’s dopey, smiley afterglow, his lips kiss-swollen and white wings draped across their bed. 

They miracled up a bathtub big enough for ten people and spent hours in it. Aziraphale would pick flowers from the garden and sprinkle the petals on the steaming surface of the water. Crowley would lie in his arms and doze in the humidity, his body uncoiling, mind drifting. 

The first time Aziraphale did a coin trick, on a sunny afternoon in the summer, Crowley burst into tears so suddenly and violently it took him a good half hour to calm down. It was surreal, something he watched from a distance - his own wrecked mouth trying to speak, Aziraphale’s panic, the way he muffled terrible moans into Aziraphale’s shoulder. Afterwards he couldn’t quite explain it. 

“I thought I’d lost you,” he cried while his husband held him tight. “I thought I’d lost you.” Though when he’d thought that, or in what way, he couldn’t quite catch the thread of it. 

Aziraphale cried with him, the two of them tangled together on the kitchen floor. They kissed each other’s wedding rings and wept freely, the little silver coin that started it lost under the bench.

“I thought the same,” Aziraphale whispered, and he’d been right. They’d both been right. They’d lost each other. The thought made Crowley sob until his chest hurt, trying to comfort his ash-white angel with clutching hands, kisses to his shoulders and knuckles. Crumpet eventually discovered them and tried to get in on the cuddle, turning their tears to watery laughs when he curled up between them. 

They didn’t do much that night, or the next day, but once the initial shock had worn off Crowley was so grateful to be here, in their home, where they could recover with chocolate cake and long baths and lying in bed all day together. 

The days stretched out long, but the seasons still changed, somewhere outside of them, around their little bubble. They laughed, and cooked, and gardened, and sometimes they argued, though neither had the heart for it for long. 

Crumpet grew at an alarming rate, which made it quite a lot harder to fight him off when he really wanted a kiss. He could be seen any time of day trotting along behind Aziraphale, tongue hanging out and tail wagging. 

“He plays favourites,” Crowley complained. “I’m the one who rescued him.”

Aziraphale smirked. “Ah, yes, but I’m the one who sneaks him food at the dinner table.”

“I  _ knew _ you were doing that. It’s… nepotism? Something.”

“I think you’ll find the term is ‘foul play’.”

“Some angel you are,” Crowley groused as he drew his angel in for a kiss, which he then cut off. “Bribery! It’s called bribery.”

“Yes, darling, he’s a dog. Now stop complaining and kiss me.”

It was a cool day when Crowley went rifling through a box from his Mayfair flat and found a scarf. It was yellow-orange, badly made and misshapen, twenty years old. Aziraphale had bought it for him and he’d hated it, and he’d loved the way the angel smiled, the wattage turned all the way up like it used to. The smile for favours and magic tricks, his sunlit smile that seemed to part the clouds. 

Crowley wrapped the scarf around his neck, fastened it there. It was cold out and the garden needed doing. 

He knelt on the cold ground and got to work, pulling weeds and pruning branches. He’d learned, Aziraphale had helped him learn, because shouting at houseplants didn’t heal their spots. He had a fertiliser and an insecticide, had his arms in the earth up to his elbows, turning up worms and ladybugs and all other creepy crawlies. The loam was like clay in his hands, leaving deep imprints wherever he pressed. 

By the time Aziraphale came home from the village he’d been there for hours, there was dirt under his fingernails and his hair was falling in front of his eyes. 

The gate squeaked as Aziraphale walked through it, walked down their front path where he’d planted sweet peas and honeysuckle. Crowley sat back to watch him come home. His angel’s cheeks were pink from the cold, his hair caught the light like fresh snow. He looked damn good in his outerwear, wool and cotton, layers tailored just for him and a tartan bowtie that Crowley had tied for him that morning. He carried himself in that friendly, determined way that made Crowley’s insides go a bit fuzzy, he walked as if to say  _ hello, I’m here, ready to be fed chocolate mousse and red wine while I make you laugh yourself silly. _

Aziraphale noticed him and offered him a wave and a small smile. His eyes darted down to the dreadful scarf sitting at an odd angle around Crowley’s neck. 

Then he smiled, the real smile, the one that lit him up like sunshine. He beamed at Crowley, letting out a breath, eyes crinkling with love and fondness. 

The flowers bloomed around them there, in their garden, not from a miracle but from months of sweat, months of study, a garden shed full of tools and strange potions, from hours of work with their own hands. So now the angel stood in a field of flowers, sweet peas and bluebells, carnations, peonies and roses, violets, marigolds and baby’s breath. The whole world in brilliant technicolour just for them. 

It wasn’t a paradise, but it was a chance. 

Crowley climbed to his feet and held out a hand. His husband took it, and together they made their way inside. 

They were going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a ride, you guys. The response to this story has completely blown me away, you are all the most thoughtful, bright, lovely readers anyone could ask for. 
> 
> Special thanks to my beta Seekwill, and to JoulesBurn for leading the discussion (and her gorgeous art). 
> 
> If you have any lingering questions my askbox is open on [tumblr.](https://omgmussimm.tumblr.com) I have anon turned on and I'm happy to answer any questions in as much detail as I can. I'll tag any asks I get with "#tabula rasa".


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